School Bus Accident on Crowchild - Update

[llama64]

Article

Nearly a dozen children were rushed to hospital after a crash involving a school bus along Crowchild Trail Thursday morning. The school bus collided with a gravel truck around 8:30 a.m. near Crowchild Trail and 17th Avenue S.W.
EMS rushed two children with critical life threatening injuries, and three others in serious but non-life threatening to the Alberta Children’s Hospital.

What a horrible accident!

Police have shut down southbound Crowchild starting at Kensington Dr.

[Table 5]

I'm guessing school-busses STILL don't have seatbelts?

[J pold]

Wow that is awful there is just something so in humane about children being hurt...at least the hospital was very close

[CaptainCrunch]

I was just going to ask that.

Is there any vehicle thats less safe then a schoolbus.

Besides having no seatbelts, they have the teeth crunching re-enforced seat backs, and most of those buses have to be about 20 years old.

[Burninator]

/\ Not to mention the walls are made out of two sheets of tin.

[CaptainCrunch]

And the floors are no better.

[Dan02]

Originally Posted by J pold

Wow that is awful there is just something so in humane about children being hurt...at least the hospital was very close

Childrens hospital moved last year, its now near shaganappi trail on the West side of the university.

[llama64]

Listening to the radio reports on 660am it sounds like the school bus hit the gravel truck on the side. The pictures show a good section of the right side of the bus ripped apart.

Not sure seat belts could do much in that situation, but yeah, it's surprising they arn't mandatory these days.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by Table 5

I'm guessing school-busses STILL don't have seatbelts?

Believe it or not, this bus did have seatbelts.

The CBC story has a picture of the bus, while the video story that accompanies it also has a lot of video of the bus:

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/sto...bus-crash.html

Frankly, I'm amazed that only two kids were in critical after this.

[Fozzie_DeBear]

I drove by that accident on my way to work, I guess the school bus clipped a parked gravel truck and it looked like the right side panel of the bus was shorn off and stuck to the back of the truck...I don't know what happened to the kids, but I am not sure that seatbelts would have helped...

I hope they are all going to get through this...

[Resolute 14]

The eight year old girl has died.

[Ironhorse]

Originally Posted by Table 5

I'm guessing school-busses STILL don't have seatbelts?

Apparently this one did. Not sure if they were used though.

A total of 11 children ranging in age from eight to 17 were on the bus, which appeared to be equipped with seat belts.

Had the gravel truck broken down or something?

[Fozzie_DeBear]

Originally Posted by Ironhorse

Had the gravel truck broken down or something?

It was parked on the side of the road so it is likely...

[pope04]

Originally Posted by Snakeeye

The eight year old girl has died.

That's terrible. My thoughts are with her family.

[Saint Troy]

I drove by it as well, my heart sunk as soon as I saw the school bus involved. I've been checking the herald's site all day hoping for good news, but just seeing snakeeye's post is awful news.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by Ironhorse

Had the gravel truck broken down or something?

According to Citybeat, the dump truck had broken down.

http://www.gov.calgary.ab.ca/citybea...130013_21570_0

[JohnnyB]

That is pretty horrible news. Bad day at school and home for many.

If it hadn't been a gravel truck I'm sure any injuries would have been pretty minor. I don't think that school buses are really that unsafe though. They're huge, they're high up, they're very visible and if they're involved in an accident with anything but a gravel truck or equivalent they're going to do ok. At least they don't get crammed to capacity with people standing squished together in the aisles like city buses do. This just sounds like an awful accident, where the two vehicles involved were bound to result in something pretty bad. It's sad.

[Claeren]

I missed this accident by 200M. All of the sudden traffic just STOPPED and we all sat there, i was in the far left lane on S.Crowchild equal to the Bow Trail turn-off. But the accident was just barely out of my field of vision due to the bend and elevation rise.

Sat there and sat there and then finally 3 firetrucks got to the scene.

By the time we got to the accident the firemen were just settling on to the scene. (If i had known what it was i would have tried to help obviously, like those closer to the scene did end up doing)

The bus was fine from the rear so the dynamics of the accident did not make sense until i found out the truck was parked on the shoulder. You could see the entire one side ripped off with the seats seemingly hanging out (although i think it was more the visual affect from missing a side of the bus) and all the crying kids in the ditch.... Pretty crappy way to start the morning!!

I had to rush to work (Health Region) to help assemble the ER staff and dispatch the code team, etc.

Apperently a doctor and an off-duty fire fighter were amongst the first on scene....



Claeren.

[Claeren]

Just to clarify some questions here,

- The Dumptruck was parked at the side of road.
- It was properly parked and fully on to the shoulder of the road.
- The bus clipped the parked dump truck, tearing the side of the bus off and then hit a light post in the ditch crumpling the front right side of the bus.

- All EARLY indications are that it was fully the fault of the bus driver and not at all the fault of the truck driver.




Claeren.

[urban1]

One child killed in Calgary bus crash
The Canadian Press
October 18, 2007 at 3:44 PM EDT

CALGARY — An eight-year-old girl died Thursday and another child suffered life-threatening injuries after their school bus side-swiped a dump truck parked on a Calgary expressway in the morning rush hour.
MOD EDIT: Don't post full articles please.