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Students dodge injury as train hits bus

A charter bus full of middle schoolers stalls at a crossing in the path of an oncoming freight train. The panicking passengers evacuate just before the crash.

By JONATHAN ABEL
Published February 17, 2006

	[Times photo: Keri Wiginton]
	A train traveling north on Hwy 50 near US 301 struck a bus only moments after students and teachers from Fox Chapel Middle School abandoned the vehicle.

BROOKSVILLE - A charter bus loaded with eighth graders stalled on railroad tracks near here Friday. Stay calm, the driver told them, he'd be right back.

He disappeared into the woods. Then the crossing gate came down and the warning lights started flashing.

Bus passengers looked out to see a 60-car freight train bearing down on them.

Pandemonium broke out.

Kids fells down as they rushed for the exit. They screamed and pushed.

"I said, "Hurry, hurry, I don't want to die, but please hurry,"' said science teacher Tina Regan.

Recently widowed, she imagined how her own kids were about to be orphans. Still, she wouldn't leave until all the kids had escaped.

"I stepped off and it hit right away," she said.

The 60-car train t-boned the gray charter bus and blew out its windows.

The train ground to a halt a few yards away, dragging the bus with it. The train had been travelling at 40 mph before the engineer began to brake. Its speed at the time of the crash remained unclear late Friday.

Five students and one adult were taken to the hospital with very minor injuries, said Florida Highway Patrol spokesman Trooper Larry C. Coggins Jr. The injuries were mostly from the rush to get off and the flying debris.

Their driver, Scott H. Short, 31, could not be reached for comment. The bus had stalled twice before the crash, including once at a traffic light.

The 42 students and their four chaperones from Fox Chapel Middle School in Spring Hill were westbound on State Road 50, returning from Medieval Times, a restaurant and 11th-century joust venue in Kissimmee.

Christina Bardis was one of the chaperones for the trip with her son, Devon Hernandez.

"He wouldn't leave without me. I told him just get off, but he said he wanted to be here with me," Bardis recalled. In the grass near the crossing, she rubbed her son's head and jokingly called him stupid for not listening.

The crash closed down traffic on State Road 50 in both directions.

State law law requires buses to stop between 15 and 50 feet before a train crossing, Coggins said, but allowances are made for mechanical failures.

Hernando school transportation director Linda Fultz said that each school was responsible for picking its own charter companies. Her department sent a school bus to the scene of the accident to collect the stranded passengers but she didn't know the circumstances of the crash. She said there could be an investigation, including one by the National Transportation Safety Board, but it was too early to tell. The Highway Patrol investigation continues.

Representatives from Annett Bus Lines were not available Friday evening.

After the crash, students huddled in a mass and mostly looked dazed. Some parents made it past the police tape to gather their children.

"It was something you see on TV but not in real life," said teacher Patricia Cameron.

April Guinta, 14, was crying. "We're all very lucky," she said.

[Last modified February 17, 2006, 21:44:02]