A woman is critically injured when her car hits a school bus, but no kids are seriously hurt.
By STEVE THOMPSON
Published February 28, 2004
[Times photo: Brendan Fitterer]
When this bus from Hernando High School was hit nearly head-on Friday in New Port Richey, it went over the car it collided with and then swerved onto the sidewalk, leaving its front axle and wheels behind. "When the bus stopped, it rocked like we were going to flip," student Brian Brooks, 18, said.
[Times photo: Janel Schroeder-Norton]
Leela Hadsock, 17, a Hernando High student, speaks with Pasco County sheriff's Deputy Ken Petrillo after a Buick slammed into the school bus she was riding in Friday.
NEW PORT RICHEY - Hernando High School's track team got a scare Friday afternoon and a woman was critically injured when her Buick collided with a school bus on Decubellis Road.
Ambulance workers took one of the students to an area hospital with neck pain. Nineteen students had been on their way to a track meet at Gulf High School.
The Buick's driver, whom authorities did not identify but said was a woman in her late 60s, was taken by helicopter to Bayfront Medical Center in St. Petersburg.
"She just kept slowly coming into our lane," said Brian Brooks, 18, one of the team's hurdlers.
"She slowly went back to her lane, then came back in our lane harder," Brooks said. "I was like, "Watch out! We're going to hit!' "
The Buick crossed the center line and slammed into the bus nearly head-on. The bus went over the front of the Buick and swerved onto the sidewalk, leaving its front axle and tires behind.
"When the bus stopped, it rocked like we were going to flip," Brooks said. Then the students saw smoke billowing from the bus' hood and heard its engine whistling and hissing, he said.
"It sounded like screaming," Brooks said. "I thought the bus was going to catch on fire and blow up or something."
Before the crash, coach Ernie Chatman had been handing out uniforms to his team.
"It knocked me to the floor," he said. "I didn't know what had happened other than we had hit something."
Chatman's son, Bret Chatman, 17, was sitting in the bus' back seat.
"I felt us hit, and we started vibrating really bad," Bret Chatman said. After the crash, he opened the bus' rear door, and the others filed out behind him. Many of the students pulled out cell phones and called their parents.
Decubellis Road was shut down as ambulances and patrol cars rushed to the scene of the crash, which the Florida Highway Patrol confirmed was caused by the Buick crossing the center line.
The bus' driver, Elaine Stratford, was shaken but uninjured. She said she put on the brakes but could not avoid the crash.
"I couldn't do anything," Stratford said. "It happened so fast."
