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25 kids on School Bus spared in collision
with tractor trailer Edgefielddaily.com web posted September 27, 2005  SWEETWATER
– An
Edgefield County School Bus was involved in a three vehicle crash on
Highway 25 at Haynes Road Monday afternoon. A black BMW 325i was
preparing to stop when a northbound tractor trailer truck was unable to
stop and crashed into the BMW driving it into the busload of students.
The driver of the BMW was removed from the vehicle after being placed
in a K.E.D. (a vest type extraction device) and placed on a backboard
and transported to MCG. Her condition was not available at this
writing. None of the children on board the bus were injured nor were
the
drivers of the bus or the tractor trailer. The bus which carried twenty-five Merriwether Elementary students was stopped, School Officials on the scene said, and had its lights on and the stop sign out. The woman driving the BMW was said to be stopped or near stopped when the Cameron Oklahoma based McClary Trucking tractor trailer topped the hill at the scene and found the bus and the car stopped. The driver stated he tried to brake but being empty the truck could get little traction so he tried to swerve to the median at which time he struck the BMW and basically pinched it between his trailer and the bus spinning it between the two as he passed. Parts of the car were impaled into or on the bus.  “When
I hit the median it (the truck) tried to turn over on me so I hit
the gas and tried to keep it upright, that’s when I hit her I think,“
the driver who did not want to be identified said. His truck was parked
several hundred yards away near Rainbow Falls Road at the entrance of
Southern Felt. The truck driver stated there were no warning lights
flashing as he topped the hill and the BMW was just slowing down. “I’ve
been driving for 19 years and haven’t had so much as a speeding
ticket,” he said.“The lights were on and the sign was out,” a school official and Merriwether Elementary Principle Gene Huiet said at the scene. “All the kids are okay and the driver (of the bus) is okay, thank God,” Mr. Huiet said. Traffic on the two northbound lanes of Highway 25 was stopped for nearly twenty minutes as emergency personnel worked to free the woman from the car. Once she was removed Edgefield County Deputies directed a very slow and sporadic passage of some vehicles. Traffic was backed up at least a half a mile with other school busses caught in the traffic. Saundra Curry, who has been fighting for a traffic signal at Bettis Academy Road and Highway 25 just a few miles up, has warned of the dangers of the many transfer trucks that use Highway 25. One of her biggest fears is an accident at her intersection which is on the two lane portion of the highway and a school bus full of children. “If that same incident had happened here it would have been a tragedy,” she said, “a lot of lives would have been lost.” She stated the county has been lucky, but luck was going to run out and the results were going to be “very ugly.” Today, fortunately, luck was on the side of the Edgefield County School bus and children onboard. “I thank God he didn’t hit that bus,” Ms. Curry said. The students were offloaded and an additional bus was brought in transport the ones parents were not able to retrieve. One other bus driver further back stopped Edgefield Daily.com and stated she too has worried about such an accident, “I have a stop just up from there and the trucks just fly down this road,” she said, “It scares me to death.”  Looking at the skid
marks the truck just missed hitting the bus by a
matter of feet. The driver stated the only cargo he had onboard was,
“two or three air conditioning units for employees at CMC,” who had
ordered them before CMC decided to close the Trenton plant. The driver
of the truck was said to be facing charges in the collision though none
have been filed at this writing.
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