Accident - Bus of NC HS Students rolls over on GA/FL line

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Dozens Injured As Bus Flips At Florida-Georgia Line

Charter Carrying North Carolina High School Band To Orlando Rolls Over

ST. MARYS, Ga., 11:27 a.m. EDT April 6, 2001 -- A chartered bus carrying band students from a North Carolina high school rolled over early Friday on Interstate 95 south just above the Georgia-Florida border.

Charter busPolice say that 22 of the 46 people on the bus were injured. The seven most seriously injured were taken to Snads-Jacksonville Medical Center in Jacksonville and the rest to Camden Medical Center in St. Marys.

The bus was carrying members of the Massey Hill High band from Fayetteville, N.C., who were heading to Orlando for a competition.

Of the injured at Shands-Jacksonville, all are between the ages 13 and 15 years old and four were brought by air ambulance. At 11 a.m., the hospital report that two are in critical condition, with five in serious contition.

Band director Steve West was at Shands calling the parents of the injured students.

"I haven't cried in 20 years," West said about watching a critically injured teen being loaded onto an air ambulance.

Kingsland mapA second charter bus transporting band members was not invovlved in the accident, and carried the uninjured students to a staging area at the Camden County Sheriff's Office. Replacement buses have been brought to that location, where the students will be driven back to North Carolina.

The bus driver told police that he swerved to avoid a car that cut him off, hit the guard rail and flipped. But Allison Hodge, a spokeswoman for the Georgia State Patrol in Atlanta, said that troopers couldn't confirm that a car had caused the accident. "We're getting a lot of conflicting stories right now," she said.

The accident happened just after 6:30 a.m. For almost three hours, all southbound lanes were closed on I-95. Traffic was flowing again just before 10 a.m.

The bus was from AMA Charters, an approved carrier under Cumberland Coounty School policy, which requires the company carry $5 million in liability insurance coverage.

In addition, the school system has its own liability insurance covering students, employees and volunteers.

Massey is a public high school with an emphasis on traditional academics, the arts and the development of character, school pride and civic responsibility. Classes went on as scheduled Friday.

"In a situation like this, it's really important to try to maintain a normal schedule and have students go about," said school spokeswoman Sarah Piland. "But we do have psychological services personnel available to students."



-- Anonymous, April 06, 2001


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