INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A school bus carrying severely disabled students home from a trip to the zoo rolled over Thursday on a highway near Indianapolis, injuring a dozen people, including five children, state police said.
Indiana State Police spokesman Rich Myers said a truck was changing lanes on Interstate 65 near Zionsville about 2 p.m. Thursday when it cut in front of the special-needs school bus. The bus driver told police she swerved into the soft median to avoid the truck and then the bus rolled over, WLFI-TV reported.
Five children and seven adults were hurt, but none of the injuries were life-threatening, Myers said. All 12 were taken to Indianapolis hospitals, Tippecanoe School Corp. Scott Hanback said. Their conditions weren’t immediately known.
Dr. Larry Reed at Methodist Hospital, where some of the injured were taken, told The Indianapolis Star that three children and two adults were in good condition with no serious trauma.
Hanback said the bus was a Lafayette School Corp. bus carrying special-needs students from Mintonye Elementary School in southern Tippecanoe County. The students had gone to Indianapolis Zoo for a field trip.
“The bus was filled with students from the life skills class,” Hanback said, meaning they had severe and profound disabilities and multiple impairments— physical as well as developmental. At least one was in wheelchair, he said.
All five students were elementary age, from 4 to 10 years old, Hanback said. He also said most of the seven adults were parents. The bus driver also was injured.
The truck that caused the crash did not stop, Myers said. The truck was described as either a white box truck or a white semitrailer, he said. The vague description of the truck made locating it difficult, Myers said.
