BENTONVILLE -- A Bentonville High School student was injured Friday after he ran into a school bus while crossing a street outside the school, according to police and School District officials.
The student suffered "non-life-threatening injuries" and was treated at the scene before being taken by ambulance to the hospital, said Paul Stolt, district spokesman. He declined to disclose the student's name. No one else was injured, he said.
Pedestrian Problems
Friday’s incident outside Bentonville High School marks at least the third time in less than three years a Bentonville student has been hit by a vehicle while walking to or from school. In October 2012, a 17-year-old Bentonville High student was hit and seriously injured by a school bus while she was crossing Southeast 14th Street. Two weeks later, a 12-year-old Washington Junior High student was seriously injured when he was hit by a Nissan Armada while crossing East Central Avenue. Both accidents occurred shortly after school was dismissed for the day. Both victims survived.
Source: Staff Report
The accident occurred about 8:30 a.m. on Southeast J Street in front of the high school. A 17-year-old boy heading west on foot crossed J Street just south of the Southeast 18th Street intersection, according to a Bentonville Police Department news release.
The boy ran in between two buses stopped at a light in the northbound lanes of J Street, then hit a bus making a right turn from 18th Street to J Street's southbound lanes. The boy hit the left side of the bus, according to police.
A police report identified the bus driver as Ashley Tate, 34, of Bentonville. Tate has driven buses for the district since March 2011. Friday's accident was the first she's been involved in as a district driver, Stolt said.
The district, following its protocol in such situations, immediately took Tate from the accident scene for mandatory drug screening. There was no indication drugs or alcohol played a role in the accident, said Chris DeWitt, district transportation director.
Tate's bus had 15 high school students on board, DeWitt said. Police interviewed those students.
Tate was placed on paid leave pending the outcome of the investigation by police, Stolt said.
"This protocol applies whenever there is an accident involving a district employee and a district vehicle," Stolt said.
Police received two 911 calls about the accident. One caller identified herself as Courtney Howard, who was driving a school bus waiting behind two other buses at a red light on J Street. Howard saw the boy run across the street and into another bus as it was driving by, according to a recording provided by the police.
"I think his arm's broken. His leg too looks disfigured," Howard told the 911 operator. "He's complaining about his leg. And his arm, I think. He ran in mostly with the right side of his body."
Howard later told police the boy crossed in front of her bus. When he ran into Tate's bus, he was thrown back into the turning lane, right under the driver's side corner bumper of Howard's bus, the police report stated.
There is a crosswalk at J Street and 18th Street, just north of where the accident occurred, "but it was not related to this accident," according to the news release from police. Information obtained from the bus showed it wasn't going more than 10 mph at the time of the accident, Stolt said.
NW News on 03/14/2015