The following is a letter Wawasee Community School Corporation Superintendent Dr. Tom Edington sent to Wawasee parents regarding last Wednesday’s accident involving four school buses. The letter has also been posted on the corporation’s website:
Thank you to all Wawasee individuals who helped last Wednesday with the school bus accident. Community members and school parents with backgrounds in healthcare, the military, and just caring people appeared from all directions. Community safety personnel flew to the scene.
Police, fire, EMT and highway individuals checked and assisted children, maintained a safe scene, and transported the possibly seriously injured to area hospitals. School personnel assisted children at the scene, set up the middle school with more medical personnel to receive and check children, and rode along in buses from the accident location to Wawasee Middle School. When ambulances had left, a bus transported over 20 hurt students and drivers to the hospital.Students were accompanied by an EMT and school personnel and escorted by the Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Department. Both Kosciusko Community Hospital and IU Health-Goshen Hospital were waiting for our injured youth. The site of the accident was not pretty and may have looked chaotic from a distance, yet caring things were happening for the victims every second. It is gratifying to live in a community like this.
Students – about 130 in number – from grades 6-12 riding the four buses were in the farm field beside the accident scene. They helped and supported one another. Drivers, some injured, assisted their children. You would have been proud of the students and drivers.
Over 50 students were checked and treated in area hospitals. One student was admitted to stay overnight. A driver suffered internal injuries and had emergency surgery Wednesday evening. A second driver was kept for observation and treated for several hours.
Over 30 students were checked by medical personnel who rushed to Wawasee Middle School, where parents picked up their children. Those doctors and nurses set up quickly and saw any child who exhibited signs of distress. In addition, some parents took their children to their own doctor on Thursday or Friday to be checked.
What happens now? The state police are investigating the accident and will issue a report. They check the mechanical condition of the buses involved, driver records and blood tests, the accident scene, and other factors which may be involved in the accident. In addition, we have requested that the transportation division of the Indiana Department of Education check our transportation policies and procedures in relation to this accident to make any recommendations for the future.
Of the four buses involved, a couple may be repaired and a couple may not. We work with the state police and insurance company on those decisions. Parents of students in the bus accident received a letter from the school with details about insurance from the accident.
More than anything, though, our focus has been on those hurt in the accident. Their physical and emotional health has been checked daily. Our school nurses, administrators and counselors call, if they are still at home, or talk with, if they are in school, students to make sure things are getting better.
There have been discussions about seat belts on buses as a result of our accident. Presently, buses are designed with high-back, padded seats. While students may move forward in an accident and hit the seat in front of them, the design is that they stay within that padded compartment. Given our bus accident, I am not sure whether seat belts would have had an effect.
Wawasee released a video from the first school bus. The video equipment in the second bus was damaged in the accident. We are trying to retrieve those images. Buses three and four are older and didn’t have video equipment. We purchase video equipment now whenever we buy a new school bus.
Courts have ruled that school video from “common” areas must be released, if requested, as long as persons in that video are not subject to an investigation of misconduct. Since no one on the first bus in the accident is under investigation, we released the video. Other “common” areas in a school setting are exterior areas, hallways, cafeterias, entry areas, gymnasiums and other locations where there is no expectation of privacy. Court rulings were more restrictive about release of video just a couple of years ago. The line between private and public has become blurred with technology.
Some personal items were left by students at the accident scene. Please contact the middle school at 574-457-8839 or the high school at 574-457-3147 if you have items to retrieve.
Counselors involved with accidents tell us that there are stages to go through physically and emotionally for recovery. We are in that process now, which goes at different speeds for different people. Time will be our friend as the sharp edges and pains dull in the coming weeks. What I know will remain in the Wawasee community is a feeling of togetherness that can only come about through a great common need. We’ll move forward from this accident together.
Dr. Tom Edington
Superintendent
Wawasee Community School Corporation