TERRE HAUTE — Colten Harkrider, 10, was playing his Nintendo DS when the school bus in which he was riding started to rumble and shake. At that moment, his mother, Cathy Harkrider, wrapped herself around him tightly and the bus, which had left the highway and was traveling in a ditch, hit a grassy embankment.
For a moment, the entire bus seemed to leave the ground.
“We were airborne,” Colten said about three hours after the accident as he ate lunch with his older brother and father at the Dairy Queen in Clinton. “I saw the front of the bus way up in the air.”
After apparently leaving the ground for several yards, the bus crashed back to earth in the soft, grassy ditch and continued to travel along the side of the highway. It came within a foot of a telephone pole, struck a road sign and missed another telephone pole before the driver was able to bring the bus back onto the highway.
“It was real scary,” Colten said between bites of his lunch. After the bus came to a stop, “everyone was shaking and crying.”
Amazingly, no serious injuries were reported from the accident. Local hospitals, however, treated 27 students and five adults who had been on the Turkey Run Community School Corp. bus when the accident occurred shortly after 9 a.m. Tuesday.
“I grabbed [Colten] because I didn’t know what was happening,” said Cathy Harkrider, who was injured in the incident when her chest struck the bus seat in front of where she and Colten were sitting about one-third of the way back in the bus. Cathy, a parent volunteer on the day’s field trip, was released from the hospital with some soreness several hours after the incident. “I would rather that I be hurt than him,” she said.
Tire tracks at the scene of the accident indicated that the school bus, which was taking Turkey Run Elementary School fourth-graders to Terre Haute on a field trip to hear the Terre Haute Symphony, left U.S. 41 South just north of Lambert Avenue a few miles south of Lyford. It entered a shallow ditch and continued in the ditch for more than 110 yards before returning to the highway. While in the ditch, the bus struck the sign reading “Entering Vigo Leaving Parke County.”
Dozens of emergency vehicles, including ambulances, fire trucks and police cars, were soon on the scene as rescue personnel assisted the injured while those unhurt huddled together in a farm field looking back at the damaged bus. Injured children and adults were taken to two different area hospitals. The white roof of the bus showed signs of rubbing against something while the door and stairs at the front of the bus were twisted. A large piece of metal at the rear of the bus was pulled away from the body and mud caked the right-side wheels of the vehicle.
The school bus nearly turned on its side during the incident, said Indiana State Police Master Trooper Gary Winters at the scene.
In a media release issued later in the day, Indiana State Police noted that the bus driver’s attention was “diverted by students” and she temporarily took her eyes off the road. When the driver looked forward again, she realized she was going off the roadway, the media release stated.
No other vehicles were involved, Winters said.
“I feel for the bus driver,” Harkrider, a former bus driver, said. “She is an excellent driver. Whatever happened was an accident.”
Emergency responders took injured victims to Union Hospital at Terre Haute and West Central Community Hospital at Clinton. Both hospitals, because of the large number of incoming patients, initiated their disaster plans, hospital officials said.
In all, Union Hospital treated and released eight students and one adult from the accident. West Central Community Hospital treated and released 19 students and four adults. The emergency plan was called off around 12:30 p.m., said Lorrie Heber, a Union Hospital Health Group spokeswoman.
While in the hospitals, the students and adults were given X-rays to check for fractures, Heber said. Injuries included contusions, abrasions and nose injuries, she said.
All patients were treated and released from both hospitals, according to the Indiana State Police.
Around 20 uninjured students also were taken to West Central Community Hospital to await their parents or guardians. They were given cookies and milk in the hospital’s cafeteria while they waited, Heber said.
The bus tire tracks along U.S. 41 disappear for around 10 yards at a driveway near where the bus left the roadway. It appears the bus struck the driveway and may have actually left the ground. The bus tracks reappear with deep ruts on the other side of the driveway.
Cathy Harkrider said she felt the vehicle may have actually become airborne. “I thought the bus might be going to turn over on its side,” she said later. “We’re really fortunate that there were no really serious injuries. God was looking over us.”
Someone who had been on board the bus called Turkey Run School Superintendent Thomas Rohr’s office shortly after the incident occurred, Rohr said. The school corporation’s first concern was getting the children checked out by medical personnel and quickly notifying parents, he said.
The teachers on board the bus were “veteran teachers” and did a good job calming the children, Rohr said. Parent volunteers also worked to calm the students. “It was a matter of everyone working together,” Rohr said.
Emergency vehicles at the scene included responders from Vermillion, Vigo and Parke counties. The Lyford Fire Department, the Indiana State Police and sheriff’s deputies from all three counties were also at the scene. TransCare and other ambulance services also responded to the accident, which started in Parke County and ended in Vigo County.
“It felt like we barrel-rolled a couple of times,” Colten Harkrider said after the accident. Kids who had been sitting on the driver’s side of the bus were pitched to the right side of the bus, he said.
“It all happened really fast,” Cathy Harkrider said. “It was something I don’t ever want to go through again.”
Arthur Foulkes can be reached at (812) 231-4232 or arthur.foulkes@tribstar.com.
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