School bus rolls over, serious injuries avoided (updated)
Published 3:32 pm Thursday, January 22, 2015
A Chilton County school bus overturned Thursday while traveling on Enterprise Road. Several students were transported to hospitals, though none of the injuries were considered critical.
Twelve Clanton students were hospitalized Thursday for injuries sustained in a school bus wreck.
None of the injuries were considered critical, officials on the scene said, but the incident was still a scare for many.
Tanya Langston said she was at home waiting on her son, 5-year-old Connor, when she received a call that he was on the bus that rolled onto its side.
“I was hysterical until they told me that he was OK,” she said shortly after being reunited with Connor.
Twenty-five Clanton Elementary and Clanton Intermediate students and a driver were on Bus No. 25-12 when it overturned Thursday afternoon while traveling on Enterprise Road.
Travis Wimbush, who lives close to the site of the incident, heard the crash, rushed over and began helping children out of the emergency escape hatches cut into the roof of the bus.
“We just got them up and off into the grassy area,” Wimbush said. “They had cuts and bruises.”
Wimbush said two students and the driver were entrapped, and he and passers-by who stopped to help were able to partially lift the bus to free the victims.
Ten of those injured were taken to Shelby Baptist Medical Center, and two were taken to Children’s of Alabama.
No information about the cause of the wreck was immediately available. No other vehicles were involved, Clanton Police Chief Brian Stilwell said.
Students who were passengers on the overturned bus but did not need to be transported for medical treatment were loaded onto another bus and dropped off with their parents at Clara’s Cafe, which sits a short distance from the crash site.
Bus passengers who didn’t have to be transported for medical treatment were loaded onto a different bus and taken to meet their concerned parents at Clara’s Cafe, where they were close enough to be able to see emergency responders as they worked at the scene.
Parents and others close to the students waited anxiously in the Clara’s parking lot, and hugged their children when they were dropped off.
The Langstons were among those who could breathe a sigh of relief and give thanks.
Connor Langston said he wasn’t frightened during a bus ride that he won’t soon forget.
“We just rolled over, and the all the windows crashed,” he said and added that he got to sit on a fire truck afterward.
His sister, 9-year-old Rhiannon Langston, said she feared for her brother.
“I was so afraid he was hurt when I heard the bus flipped,” Rhiannon Langston said.
All students were accounted for shortly after the incident, Superintendent Tommy Glasscock said.
Glasscock said Thursday night that all but two of the students had been released from the hospital. The two were being kept overnight for observation.
“I can’t say enough about our transportation department and our office personnel, getting information out to parents,” he said.
