Two school bus crashes in two days kill three people

Two school buses collided Tuesday morning in Rochester, N.Y., the second of two deadly school bus crashes in the U.S. in as many days.

A Monroe Transportation school bus was southbound with eight students on board when it sideswiped a northbound First Student Transportation school bus. Shortly after, the southbound bus crashed into a tree. Officers are still investigating what led to the accident, officials said.

Bus driver Edwin Dejesus, 30, appeared to have had a medical emergency that may have led to the crash, said David Bonacchi, Monroe Transportation’s general manager. Several students and a bus attendant were injured.

Dejesus was killed and several students and a bus attendant were injured, said officials at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester.

“The good news is that all of these students and our bus attendant are going to be OK,” Bonacchi said. “Unfortunately the driver is deceased.... He was a great guy and it’s a tremendous loss to our company.”

Eight children and an adult were injured in the crash, said Dr. Michael Kamali, chief of emergency medicine at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester. Six of the children have been discharged; the other two children and the adult are being treated for non-life-threatening injuries, hospital officials said.

Kamali called it a “stressful, traumatic” event for the children, who are between 8 and 11 years old.

“When we heard there were children coming, it always puts people on edge,” Kamali said.

Meanwhile, North Dakota officials said driver error probably played a role in a school bus crash Monday afternoon that killed two people and injured at least a dozen.

A BNSF train crashed into a school bus at 3:39 p.m. half a mile east of the city of Larimore, according to the North Dakota Highway Patrol.

The bus driver “didn’t brake in time to stop the bus before being in front of the train,” said Highway Patrol Lt. Troy Hischer. “We just completed a mechanical inspection of bus. We found no deficiencies.”

A 17-year-old student, Cassidy Sandstrom, and the 62-year-old bus driver, Max Danner, were ejected and killed. Multiple passengers were injured, including five males and seven females.

The bus was heading north on a gravel road when it was struck by a westbound train near the passenger side doors after skidding onto the tracks. Police are interviewing students who were on the bus to determine whether the driver was distracted.

“Regardless if he was distracted, he was still responsible to stop at the stop sign,” Hischer said.