School has barely been in session one week and we have a horrible accident to report involving a school bus, a minivan, and a cement mixer truck.
One eight-year-old girl is dead and seven other children were injured Friday when they got into an accident in a bus owned by a Boys and Girls Club. It was transporting 27 Tallahassee-area students from Apalachee Elementary School to the club.
A cement truck rear-ended the bus while it stopped at a red light. It was waiting in the left-turn lane. The impact tipped the truck to its side and caused the bus to hit into a minivan that was sitting in front if it.
8-year-old Roshay Dugans died at Tallahassee memorial Hospital. The other injured students were treated and released. Apparently the children sitting in the back of the bus had the fewest number of injuries.
Parent Angela Williams rushed to the scene. “My son and my niece are very, very very traumatized,” Williams said to the Sun-Sentinel. “My son is covered in -he has blood -someone else’s blood. He said the little girl next to him was hurt really, really bad.”
There is no word tonight on whether the cement truck driver will be cited or why he hit the school bus, but parents and hopefully their attorneys need to be asking tough questions and now.
Given a recent General Accounting Office report this summer on the high number of bus and commercial truck drivers who also qualify for disability coverage, I would want to know whether either driver should have even had a commercial license to drive a bus or a cement truck, and whether police did a blood alcohol test.
That’s the first place to start and traumatized parents need an experienced accident attorney to advocate for them at this time.
Our condolences to the families of the little children involved. We hope they get to the bottom of this accident quickly before evidence goes away.
