New details are emerging about a San Antonio bus that overturned with dozens of students aboard on Tuesday, January 27. The incident sent five teenagers to the hospital, authorities say.
The San Antonio Police Department (SAPD) received a report of the crash at about 7:56 a.m., according to preliminary information from the station. Officers were immediately dispatched to Southwest Loop 410 and Old Pearsall Road, where they found a bus rolled over onto its left side.
The vehicle had been transporting 33 students from the Southwest Independent School District (SWISD) to Southwest Legacy High School.
The bus driver told authorities they “could not see clearly” and veered off the road as it entered the highway’s ramp to travel southbound, according to preliminary information in the SAPD report. This sent the bus into a concrete embankment, which led it to overturn, it states. All of the students inside the vehicle were able to exit it, but the driver became trapped inside, SAPD said.
Some students who were not injured were relocated to another bus for transport to their school, the report reads. Others were picked up by their parents, SWISD Chief Communications Officer and Spokesperson Jennifer Collier told MySA yesterday.
Emergency Medical Services (EMS) transferred the handful of others who were experiencing pain to the hospital. The driver is the only patient who required urgent transport, a spokesperson for the San Antonio Fire Department (SAFD) previously told MySA.
In a Facebook statement, the SWISD said none of the students sustained life-threatening injuries. It added that
“We continue to keep our bus driver in our thoughts as they receive medical care,” the statement read. “We appreciate the patience and cooperation of our families as we worked through this situation.”
Some social media users responded to the post with concerns over the recent cold weather that plagued Texas, which led several Alamo City streets to become slippery.
“Let our children go to school later; the streets are still icy, especially on the bridges,” one comment from a San Antonio resident read.
As of Tuesday afternoon, SAPD said there was “no criminal element to the crash” and no charges were pending. The SWISD police and SAPD are conducting separate investigations, Collier previously said.
The incident caused traffic delays for over an hour, with a stretch of road between FM-2536/Old Pearsall Road and Exit 2 and Frontage Road/Exit 1 shutting down.
This article originally published at New details emerge in San Antonio bus crash that hospitalized 5 students.