Passenger unharmed, minimal damage to bus

On April 15, a school bus crashed into a pole in the student parking lot at approximately 3:45 p.m. leaving the driver dead. She was declared dead when an MVHS staff member failed to detect her pulse. The only other passenger, an elementary school boy, was unharmed.

The bus was turning into the MVHS student parking lot from the left side of McClellan Road when the driver lost control of the vehicle and drove into the pole.  According to junior Chloe Simmons who witnessed the crash, the police mentioned that perhaps the driver had a heart attack before the crash and lost control of the bus, colliding with the pole. Little damage was done to the bus and the boy did not have any injuries.

Sophomore Malvika Mecker and Simmons were with friends in the parking lot and were among the first to reach the scene upon hearing the loud sound of the crash.

“The first thing we saw was a little boy who was in elementary school… and he was trying to get out,” Mecker said.

After calling the police, Mecker and Simmons opened up the emergency exit and brought the boy out. Mecker stood with the boy while Simmons climbed into the bus to check on the driver.

“[The driver] had her mouth and eyes open. And we were…really scared when we saw her eyes because then we were like ‘Wow, she might be dead,’” Simmons said. “We were just really freaked out.”

The girls were unsure of whether or not they could touch the driver, nor did they feel that they could perform CPR properly, so they called the ambulance instead.

The MVHS staff member arrived at the scene a few minutes later and was directed by the paramedics on the phone to check the driver’s pulse.

“He said that she had no pulse,” Simmons said. “So we were all just really scared at that point and we were trying to make the little boy feel better because he was really scared too.”

By the time the police and ambulance arrived half an hour later, Assistant Principal Brad Metheany had arrived as well, because the police wanted to speak with a representative from MVHS to find out what school the bus belonged to. According to Simmons, the bus was from Stevens Creek Elementary school, and the boy was perhaps the last one being dropped off on the bus.

“I think that when she lost control, she was going around the corner and for that corner the speed limit was 10 miles per hour,” Simmons said. “She was probably going at that speed when the bus crashed, so that was lucky.”

After being interviewed by the police, the boy was released to his grandmother.

Check back next week for more updates on the accident.