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(Updated) Nearly a dozen sent to hospital after bus crash
Friday, April 17, 2009
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photos by DARWIN WEIGEL
Calvert County Sheriff's Cpl. Anthony Moschetto arranges to get tow trucks in to clear out two school buses and a rental car after a three-way accident on the northbound Rt. 4 Friday afternoon in front of the hospital in Prince Frederick. No serious injuries were reported.
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A crash involving two Calvert County school buses sent about a dozen people to the hospital Friday afternoon, according to Sheriff Mike Evans.
The collision occurred around 2 p.m. at the intersection of Route 2-4 and Stoakley Road in Prince Frederick. One of the school buses was from the Calvert Career Center in Prince Frederick and the other was from Huntingtown High School. A car was also involved in the crash.
Patients were transported to the hospital as "priority 2," meaning that some were injured, Evans said. None of the injuries was life-threatening as far as he knew.
Eleven students between the ages of 15 and 17 and one adult were transported to Calvert Memorial Hospital, where they were being assessed in the emergency room, "but currently everyone involved looks to be in good condition," said hospital spokeswoman Kasia Sweeney. They arrived between 2 and 2:45 p.m.
When contacted, Calvert County public schools Deputy Superintendent Robin Welsh said "We're assessing the situation right now."
Calvert County Board of Education President Eugene Karol said, "It was my understanding that there weren't serious injuries."
"The only thing they know is a car pulled out in front of a bus and a bus hit the other bus … and I have no details other than that," Karol said.
School spokesperson Gail Bennett later confirmed that the majority of student on the bus were transferred to either Calvert Memorial Hospital in Prince Frederick or Civista Hospital in La Plata, "just because of the number of students so they can be accessed more quickly."
Bennett said that though she was unsure as to the number of students involved, it initially appeared that no injuries were serious.
"Right now our concern is the safety of the students and the bus drivers. Our next concern is getting our students home safely," she said.
Twenty patients total were transported to two area hospitals, Calvert Memorial and Civista Medical Center in La Plata, according to a press release from the Prince Frederick Volunteer Fire Department. Thirty-five additional students were uninjured and loaded onto a third school bus, and taken to Huntingtown High School where their parents were there to pick them up.
Although the driver of the passenger vehicle was uninjured, one of the bus drivers was transported to Calvert Memorial, priority one. The remaining 19 patients were transported either priority two or three to the hospitals.
Ambulances from Prince Frederick, Huntingtown, St. Leonard, North Beach, Dunkirk, Benedict and Hughesville fire departments, along with the Mass Causality unit from St. Leonard and the Huntingtown Volunteer Rescue Squad, the release said.
