With schools winding down for the year, school buses will soon be in the garages for the summer. For some parents of children in the Mohawk Area School District, who thought they had made it through the school year without incident regarding bus trips, reality intervened. Last week, a truck accident involving a bus occurred in North Beaver, Pennsylvania.

The collision occurred on a portion of Route 18 located in Lawrence County, at approximately 7:30 a.m., presumably as the bus was picking-up children to take to school.

At the time of the incident there was only one student on the bus. The seventh grader was hurt and taken to an area hospital for treatment. Fortunately, the injuries were characterized as minor. The drivers of each of the vehicles were more seriously injured in the collision. Both were transported via a helicopter to another hospital. The nature and severity of their injuries is unknown.

There are at least two factors that could have made the outcome of this crash much worse. Had more students been on the bus at the time of the crash it is likely that more people would have been hurt as a result of the collision.

Another factor that could have made it worse has to do with what the truck was transporting at the time of the accident. Under other circumstances, the highly flammable chemical ammonium nitrate, some of which leaked onto the road, could have caught fire and resulted in an explosion and fire.

Fortunately, neither of these scenarios occurred. Hopefully all involved will make a rapid recovery.

Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, "Mohawk student, two drivers injured in Lawrence County bus crash," Peter Sullivan, May 31, 2012