4 injured in Ont. school bus crash
4 injured in Ont. school bus crash
By Bradley Bouzane, Canwest News ServiceJuly 11, 2009
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Four people were sent to hospital Saturday, July 11, 2009 with serious injuries after a school bus carrying 34 people left the highway near Newmarket, Ont. and came to rest in a ditch.
Photograph by: Still, Global TV
Four people were seriously injured Saturday when a school bus carrying 34 people home from a Bible studies class, left the highway near Newmarket, Ont., and came to rest on its roof.
“The bus had collided with a guardrail and then rolled onto its roof in the ditch at the exit ramp,” said an Ontario Provincial Police release.
Although the injuries are considered serious, OPP Const. Graham Williamson said no lives were in danger. Twenty-one others, mostly between the ages of nine and 11, also were taken to hospital with minor injuries such as scrapes and bruises, but most were released fairly quickly.
Police said the bus was returning children from a weeklong Bible studies and camping trip when the accident happened at about noon, just steps away from where parents were waiting to pick their kids up.
“My daughter called me on the cell from the bus,” parent Danny Best told Global News. “She was all crying and then I lost my signal. . . . Then she called me again . . . and said everything is OK.”
Williamson said the bus flipped onto its side on an off-ramp as it left Highway 400 approaching Highway 9, just north of Toronto. No other vehicles were involved.
“The driver was actually trapped for a number of minutes in the vehicle and had to be extracted,” Williamson said, noting that those injuries were transferred to four hospitals. “Of the four serious injuries, the driver is one of those.”
“Seven or eight were able to simply walk up to the commuter lot here and were reunited with their parents and caregivers,” Williamson said.
Williamson neither weather nor alcohol was believed to be a factor in the incident.
A section of highway was closed for several hours.
With a file from Global News
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