Texas School Bus Crash Sends 23 Children, 1 Adult to Hospitals
Twenty-four people — 23 of them fourth-graders — were sent to Southeast Texas hospitals after an accident involving their school bus, a pickup truck and an 18-wheeler.
The afternoon crash on Wednesday, April 5 happened on U.S. 69 in Lumberton, about 15 miles north of Beaumont, as the Beaumont school district bus was taking 44 Charlton-Pollard Elementary School students and four adults back to school from a Big Thicket field trip.
The wreck occurred when a school bus struck two other vehicles and careered into a ditch in southeast Texas. Lumberton police say the bus struck the rear of a tractor-trailer then a pickup truck, before traveling into the ditch on the opposite side of the road.
Beaumont school district spokeswoman Nakisha Burns says one student was airlifted to a trauma hospital in Houston and remained hospitalized on Thursday.
A hospital spokeswoman says most of the others went to Christus St. Elizabeth Hospital for examination. The other children were released but, a teacher remained hospitalized on Thursday.