By Dave Statter
dstatter@wusa9.com
STATter 911 — http://www.statter911.com
WUSA9 — http://www.wusa9.com
 Photo courtesy of WISN-TV More than 40 students were transported via medical bus to area hospitals for minor injuries after a school bus flipped over while negotiating a turn in Md. Wednesday. |
PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY, Md. — On Riverdale Road near 61st Place in Prince George’s County, a school bus overturned around 9:00 this morning. Police believe the bus hit a curb before coming to rest on its side. The most seriously injured is the bus driver who was taken to the trauma unit at Prince George Hospital Center in Cheverly. More than 40 students on the bus were transported to two area hospitals. All have relatively minor injuries. They were headed to William Wirt Middle School in the Riverdale area.
Prince George’s County Police said the bus driver was going to fast to make the turn at the intersection.
Prince George’s County Fire/EMS Department Chief Spokesman Mark Brady said this was the first use of MAB 855 (seen below), the mobile ambulance bus housed at the Bunker Hill Station. The unit had been dispatched before, but this was its first transport since being acquired by Federal Homeland Security money early last summer.
Twenty-two students, many who had been boarded and collared, were taken by the emergency bus to Prince George’s Hospital Center. Four students and the bus driver went by ALS and BLS units. Another school bus took the rest of the students to Doctors Hospital in Lanham for check-ups.
Brady tells STATter 911 he was quite impressed by a large number of police officers and sheriff’s deputies he observed helping to tend to the students.
Since 1972 Dave Statter has covered the news. A good deal of Dave’s reporting has focused on how fire and emergency medical services are delivered in and around Washington and Baltimore. Along the way, Dave was also a volunteer firefighter, an emergency dispatcher and a cardiac rescue technician.