First-Grade Girl Struck by School Bus : Safety: The 6-year-old is in serious condition. A traffic signal at the intersection was burned out, but the ‘don’t walk’ sign was working.

A first-grader was seriously injured Thursday morning when she was struck by a small school bus at an intersection where the traffic signal had burned out, authorities said.

Six-year-old Veronica Pech was airlifted to Northridge Hospital Medical Center, where she was being treated for a ruptured spleen and a deep cut on her face, a Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman said.

Her condition was upgraded from critical to serious Thursday afternoon, but she remained in the pediatric intensive care unit, a hospital spokeswoman said.

At the time of the accident, the red light where Veronica was crossing--at the northeast corner of Strathern Street and Vineland Avenue--was not working because the bulb had burned out, a city Transportation Department employee said. The pedestrian signal was operating properly but was partially obscured by a tree.

Because the pedestrian signal at the corner was working, authorities believe Veronica should have known not to cross, CHP Officer Rich Obregon said.

According to the CHP and witnesses, the North Hollywood girl had gotten off a Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus about four blocks from her school, Roscoe Elementary School in the 10700 block of Strathern Street.

When she reached Strathern and Vineland, Veronica waited for a car to turn right, then stepped out into the street. Witnesses and authorities said her comments after the accident indicated that she might have been confused by the burned-out red light.

“She said that she didn’t know the light was red and couldn’t remember that it was,” Obregon said.

Veronica was hit when the driver of a Los Angeles Unified School District mini-bus was unable to stop, authorities said. The driver tried to swerve, witnesses said, but the right front corner of the bus hit Veronica in the face and knocked her down.

Willie McLeod, who was waiting at a nearby bus stop, said he saw the school bus bearing down on the girl but was too far away to try to pull her out of the street.

“I saw the bus coming, so I called out and she stopped,” McLeod said. “If she had kept on going, the bus might have run over her.”

Afterward, McLeod said, he talked to Veronica to keep her calm until help arrived. “I lied to her and told her it was just a scratch,” he said.

The elementary school’s principal, Ruth Bunyan, rushed to the corner when she learned what had happened. “(Veronica’s) eyes were open, but she was not moving,” Bunyan said.

Obregon said it does not appear that the 28-year-old bus diver was at fault. In fact, witnesses praised Ricardo Barajas, a district employee, for doing the best he could to avoid a collision.

Neither Barajas nor the lone student riding in the school bus were injured, a school district spokesman said.

The red light bulb was replaced Thursday afternoon and the tree that hid part of the pedestrian signal was trimmed, said Don Benjamin, a senior traffic signal superintendent at the city’s Transportation Department. But Benjamin joined those who discounted the light as a contributing factor in the accident, saying the pedestrian signal had been at least partly visible from the curb.

Neighbors said the intersection, which is crossed by hundreds of students each school day, is a hazard--even when the traffic signal is functioning properly--partly because there is no crossing guard.

“The children need to be protected at this corner, not a block away,” said Sharon Lyle, referring to two crossing guards who work at intersections nearer to the school.