School bus crash stuns Vandalia

Two seventh-graders, a boy and a girl, were airlifted to Memorial Medical Center in Springfield with severe injuries; they were trapped in the wreckage and the girl had to extricated from the vehicle by firefighters. Both children are understood to come from the Fillmore area, and condition reports on them were unavailable Wednesday night.The other 13 students - in grades from kindergarten through high school and from the same rural area - were taken to hospitals in Vandalia, Greenville, Hillsboro and Litchfield and were not believed to be seriously hurt. The 70-year-old male driver underwent surgery Wednesday for facial trauma at Fayette County Hospital in Vandalia, where spokesman Kim Shanks said his injuries were not life-threatening.The accident happened about 7:30 a.m. on Burg Road near its intersection with Horse Avenue, country roads about 10 miles northwest of Vandalia. Illinois State Police say the bus, which had been picking up children en route to schools in Vandalia, left the road and plunged down a 15-foot-deep ravine, ending up on its side. The road section involved had just been repaved and a guardrail had not been replaced."The bus driver lost control for some unknown reason, and the accident is under investigation," said Master Sgt. Rick Hector, a State Police spokesman.News of the accident spread fast among the rural communities, and some parents began arriving at the scene shortly after the crash. Fillmore Fire Chief Bill Wood and his firefighters were among the first emergency crews there."I saw kids climbing up the bank on their hands and knees," he said. "They were bleeding and obviously injured."Wood said he could see two children inside the bus while the driver, covered in blood, was there helping get other children away from the vehicle. "He wasn't leaving until he got the last kid out," Wood added.The injured girl trapped inside was freed by Hillsboro Fire Department workers. Chief Joe Lyerla said the operation, using the Jaws of Life, took about 15 minutes."We had to use ropes to get the stretchers up and down, it was so steep," added Lyerla, 47. "The bus looked beat-up and we worked with the wrecker to lift it up and check to make sure there was nobody underneath it. I'm proud of our guys; they did a good job."Garry Krutsinger, Vandalia school superintendent, said school principals had been dispatched to be with children at hospitals while parents were being informed. In one case, a brother and sister were separated in Hillsboro and Greenville hospitals, and Krutsinger said it was important to make sure someone the children knew was on hand while their parents were contacted."All parents were informed or at the hospitals with their children by 10 a.m.," said Krutsinger, 57. "Our staff did a very good job."The superintendent described the crash as the worst accident he's had to deal with."We're going to have a school crisis team come in (today) to the junior high and elementary schools, where most of these students were in class," he added.Krutsinger said the team would be on hand to offer help to any students or staff having trouble dealing with the accident's aftermath."We didn't talk about it much Wednesday, just tried to get out information that was accurate and true," he added. "When you have a small community, you have a lot of rumors… oh Lord, a lot of rumors."The superintendent said how soon his school district recovers emotionally from the accident and returns to normal will depend on how well the two most seriously injured students do.As for parents nervous about letting their children climb on a school bus today, Krutsinger said buses were still one of the safest forms of transport."They have mandated inspections, and there are mandated requirements for our drivers," he explained. "I think people are about as safe on a school bus as they can be."Statistics from the School Bus Information Council, an industry group, said the number of deaths per 100,000 miles driven worked out at 0.01 for school buses, compared to 0.94 for passenger cars. Every year, America's fleet of 440,000 school buses drive 4.3 billion miles and transport 24 million children. In 2002, 45 states reported no children riding in school buses were killed in accidents.Tony Reid can be reached at 421-7977. The Associated Press contributed to this report.