School bus ripped apart in dump truck crash, killing 2
MOUNT OLIVE, N.J. » A school bus taking children on a field trip to a New Jersey historic site collided with a dump truck Thursday, ripping the bus apart and killing a teacher and student.
The crash left the bus lying on its side on the guardrail of Interstate 80 in Mount Olive, its undercarriage and front end sheared off and its steering wheel exposed. Some of the victims crawled out of the emergency exit in the back and an escape hatch on the roof. More than 40 people were taken to area hospitals.
“I heard a scraping sound and we toppled over the highway,” said fifthgrade student Theo Ancevski, who was sitting in the fourth row of the bus and was treated at a hospital for cuts and scrapes. “A lot of people were screaming and hanging from their seat belts.”
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said that one adult and one student were killed. Murphy said the truck driver was hospitalized, but officials didn’t reveal his condition. The front end of the red dump truck was mangled in the wreck, which took place about 50 mileswest of New York. The truck was registered to Mendez Trucking of Bel- leville, and had “In God We Trust” emblazoned on the back of it.
Police didn’t release details of how the crash happened, but the trucking company had a string of crashes in recent years and a higher than average rate of violations that sidelined its vehicles, according to federal safety data. There were 45 people, including 38 students, on the bus. Forty-three people from the bus and the truck driver were taken to three area hospitals, where some were listed in critical condition.
The bus was owned by the school district and had seat belts, according to Paramus schools superintendent Michele Robinson. There is no federal requirement for seat belts on full-sized school buses, but six states including New Jersey require them.
The bus was one of three taking students from East Brook Middle School to Waterloo Village, a historic site about 5 miles from the crash.