Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Stolen Truck Hits School Bus on Freeway; 5 Hurt : Accident: Driver of the big rig flees. Some of the 45 students on their way to new junior high suffer minor injuries.

A man driving a stolen big rig truck on the rain-slick Antelope Valley Freeway spun into a school bus Tuesday morning--causing minor injuries to five students--then fled the scene on foot.

About 45 students were aboard the bus headed for the first day of classes at the new La Mesa Junior High School in Canyon Country when the truck forced the bus partly off the southbound side of the freeway just south of Sand Canyon Road, authorities said.

Louis Todd, 25, of Moreno Valley said he was riding in a friend’s car southbound on the freeway when he noticed the three-axle truck pass the bus at a high rate of speed. The truck’s driver then tried to avoid traffic ahead by swerving into the right lane ahead of the bus, he said.

“This guy was just hauling butt,” Todd said. “He made a lane change and then he started spinning, and then he spun into the bus.”

The bus was knocked into a six-foot dirt embankment along the side of the road and came to rest at an angle.

“I thought we were going to tip over at first,” said Scott Arnold, 12, a student at La Mesa.

Had the bus gone over, it could have tumbled into a ravine along the freeway.

“It could have been a real tragedy,” said Gary Smith, coordinator of transportation services for the William S. Hart Union High School District.

The injured students were treated for minor neck and back pains and released from Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital in Valencia, said Cathleen Lee, a hospital spokeswoman.

The truck’s driver, estimated to be 20 to 30 years old, ran down the ravine, across a city street and disappeared in a nearby residential neighborhood, Todd said. A search by California Highway Patrol officers and Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies was unsuccessful.

The truck, belonging to Penn Van & Storage in Santa Ana, was stolen Monday night from a motel parking lot in Palm Springs, said David Krammer, the company’s owner.

“The truck driver was sleeping in a motel (Monday) night and when he came out the next morning, there was no truck there, so he called police,” Krammer said. “Then he called his wife and told her to come pick him up, and he’s been sitting there waiting since.”

La Mesa students attended a temporary campus at Valencia High School the first half of the year and were bused to school along a different road during that time, Scott said. The boy said he isn’t worried about taking the new route to school today, despite predictions of more rain.

“Our bus driver was always pretty good,” Scott said. “I just hope there’s no more drivers like that truck driver out there.”