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Boy hit by car after leaving bus

Officials don't know how direct the hit was but say they believe the boy's injuries were not life threatening.

By Times Staff Writer
Published August 12, 2005

PORT RICHEY - A 7-year-old boy was hit by a car shortly after getting off a school bus Thursday afternoon and taken by helicopter to Bayfront Medical Center in St. Petersburg, Pasco County school and sheriff's officials said.

"I don't know if he was brushed with the car or struck with the car," sheriff's spokesman Kevin Doll said. Initial reports were that the boy's injuries were not life threatening and that he was airlifted only as a precaution, Doll said. He did not release the boy's name.

The boy was headed home from Chasco Elementary School, said Jack Greene, supervisor of transportation operations for Pasco schools. He got off the bus where Sandra Drive meets U.S. 19.

Greene said he was briefed on the incident by a school resource officer, but stressed that the information was preliminary. According to that account, the boy walked about 30 yards away from the bus stop along Sandra Drive when he stopped to tie his shoe. The car that struck him at about 4:15 p.m. was driven by someone who had come to pick up another child. The school bus already had departed. The crash left the boy with scratches on his back and pain in his arm.

A spokeswoman at Bayfront Medical Center said the boy was treated in the emergency room before being transferred to its neighbor, All Children's Hospital. His condition there was not immediately available Thursday evening.

[Last modified August 12, 2005, 00:47:15]