Students shaken up in accident
Six elementary age students had to be checked by paramedics last Friday, after a school bus bringing them from Kahnawake to Kuper Academy got into an accident in Lachine. The school bus was travelling westbound on Highway 20 toward the school when the incident happened.
Though the children were quite shaken, none had to be transported to hospital, said Spencer McComber, manager of the local school bus service.
That wasn’t the case for others involved in the accident. One child and one adult were brought to hospital in the aftermath. They both suffered minor injuries, said Elizabeth Marquis-Guy, a spokesperson for the Surete du Quebec (SQ).
The accident happened around 8 a.m. that morning and was caused by a reckless driver, said McComber, who watched the footage caught by a dash camera inside the bus.
That driver cut off the bus as it was in the centre lane, also cutting off another driver in the passing lane, leading a second driver to lose control of their vehicle, he said.
“The driver in the fast lane, the passing lane on the extreme left, lost control of their vehicle and they spun out directly in front of the bus, and the bus hit the vehicle,” McComber said.
Snow was also a factor in the accident, he said.
“When the car cut off the bus, the other car went into the snow that’s up against the median,” McComber said. “That’s where it lost control.”
One child had a bloody lip, he said. The bus driver meanwhile had to take some time off on Monday to get checked out at a clinic.
“He was sore all weekend,” McComber said.
The SQ wasn’t able to confirm yet if any charges were laid against the driver involved, but did say an investigation into the incident was ongoing.
Because the bus had to be towed away, the children had to wait roughly half an hour before another bus from Kahnawake could pick them up and bring them to school. Provincial police were on scene to oversee their safety as they waited for it to arrive, McComber said.
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The bus suffered damage to its bumper and its undercarriage storage and will be out of commission until repairs can be carried out.
Parents are being asked to find another way to get their children’s hockey equipment to school in the meantime, as the bus replacing it in the interim has no undercarriage.
