Baltimore County school bus flips over, children suffer minor injuries

Source: The Baltimore SunOct.迷你倉最平 04--Ten Pikesville Middle School students had to scramble out of the emergency exits of their yellow school bus Friday morning after the driver lost control and the bus flipped off the side of a rural county road.The dramatic accident sent five students and the female bus driver to area hospitals with minor injuries, while five other students were picked up at the scene by their parents, said Chief Mike Robinson, a Baltimore County Fire Department spokesman.The injuries sustained by the students and the driver were not described, but Robinson said the students were "mainly shaken up."During the crash, which appeared to have sent the bus nearly end-over-end, windows were smashed and a tree pierced through the front left wheel well.The bus, which did not have seatbelts for the children, finally came to rest on its left side, nearly on its roof, in a gully full of bramble, trees, vines and other vegetation -- its door pointed skyward.Diana Spencer, a Baltimore County Public Schools spokeswoman, said "everyone was mobile and able to get off the bus" on their own shortly after the accident, which occurred in the 10800 block of Greenspring Ave. just before 7:30 a.m. "We are lucky," Spencer said.The accident, which did not include any other vehicles, closed Greenspring Avenue between Greenspring Valley Road and Hillside Road.Neither police nor school officials have identified a cause of the accident, which remains under investigatio儲存. The driver, who has not been identified, will be questioned and tested for drugs and alcohol as part of the routine investigation, school officials said.The school system is also conducting its own internal investigation, Spencer said.At the scene, police, emergency personnel and school officials surveyed the damage for hours, studying two black skid marks showing what appeared to be the bus' sharp curving path off the roadway.Though traveling south at the time of the accident, the bus rested with its front end pointed north.About 10 a.m., the badly damaged bus started to be towed out of the roadside gully.The frame of the bus groaned. Part of a tree jutting through its front end had to be cut with a chain saw before it could be wrenched upward and back onto the street. The bus' rooftop emergency hatches were open, a likely escape route of the childrenThe bus had three cameras on board: two facing the back of the bus, and one facing forward. "Our next step is going to be to review the footage," Spencer said at the scene.Extra counselors were made available at Pikesville Middle for students, she said, including some of the uninjured students who were on the bus and went to school after the crash.The bus was owned by Woodlawn Motor Coach and was three or four years old, Spencer said.krector@baltsun.comtwitter.com/rectorsunCopyright: ___ (c)2013 The Baltimore Sun Visit The Baltimore Sun at .baltimoresun.com Distributed by MCT Information Servicesmini storage