SCOOL BUS HORROR
Student, teacher killed in NJ crash
A field trip turned into a nightmare Thursday when a school bus packed with fifth-graders collided with a dump truck on a New Jersey interstate, killing a student and a teacher, officials said.
The horrifying smash-up on I-80 near Stanhope launched the bus throug the air, ripped its undercarriage from the chassis and left its mangled steer-steering column on the roadway.
“I heard a scraping noise and then the bus tilted over and a lot of people were screaming,” said 11-year-yearold Theo Ancevski (right), one of 38 students aboard the vehicle from East Brook Middle School in Paramus. “The bus flew off the wheels and it hit the metal thing on the side of the highway. “A lot of people were screaming, and they were hanging from their seat belts.” The bus tore through a guardrail and came to a halt, listing sharply to the driver’s side on the grassy median. The bus was headed west and its driver had apparently missed Exit 25 for Waterloo Village, the Bergen Record reported. The driver may have been attempting to make a U-turn on a paved median crossover when it was hit, WNBC/Channel 4 reported.
Theo said he knew something was wrong when he heard a loud sound from the back of the bus.
“And then one of the trucks behind us got hit,” he said.
Kids desperately climbed out to safety.
“People got out through the windows and the emergency exits,” said Theo, who was treated for cuts and scrapes at Morristown Medical Center. “I got out through the roof.”
Theo was one of 44 survivors rushed to area hospitals after the 10:30 a.m. collision, including 37 students, six adults and the driver of the dump truck, officials said.
“It was a rough scene. When I arrived on the scene, there were children all over the place,” said Jeff Paul, director of Morris County’s Office of Emergency Management. “We had patients lying all over the median.”
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy confirmed that a student and an educator had been killed.
Some of the survivors were in critical condition and undergoing surgery, Murphy said
The teacher killed was identified as fifth-grade instructor Jennifer Marie Williamson, according to several New Jersey newspapers, citing family members.
New Jersey State Police and the National Transportation Safety Board are leading the probe.
The red dump truck — its front cab crushed in the collision — is registered to Belleville-based Mendez Trucking.
The company’s 41 trucks and its drivers have a checkered safety record, having been involved in eight crashes and issued 247 violations over the past two years, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
The incidents include one crash and nine violations against a Mendez truck bearing the license-plate number of the one involved in Thursday’s tragic collision.
Mendez owner Juan Muñoz did not return multiple messages seeking comment.