Associated Press | A charter bus filled with high school students was rear-ended by a semitruck on an Ohio highway Tuesday morning, leaving six people dead and 18 injured, officials said. Five vehicles were involved in the crash, including a Pioneer Trails charter bus carrying students and chaperones from the Tuscarawas Valley Local School District in eastern Ohio, said Licking County Emergency Management Agency Director Sean Grady.
Three passengers on the bus, which was carrying a driver and 54 students and chaperones, were pronounced dead at the scene, the Ohio State Highway Patrol said Tuesday night. They were identified as John W. Mosely, 18, of Mineral City; Jeffery D. Worrell, 18, of Bolivar; and Katelyn N. Owens, 15, of Mineral City.
“This is our worst nightmare, when we have a bus full of children involved in a crash,” Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said during a news conference at the scene. “Prayers go out to the families, everyone who was on the bus.”
A total of 15 students and the bus driver were brought to area hospitals, while other students were taken to a reunification site, officials said.
All three people in one of the passenger vehicles involved were also pronounced dead at the scene, the highway patrol said. They were identified as Dave Kennat, 56, of Navarre; Kristy Gaynor, 39, of Zoar; and Shannon Wigfield, 45, of Bolivar.
The driver of the other passenger vehicle was also taken to a hospital. Of the drivers of the commercial vehicles involved, one was taken to a hospital with injuries that were not considered life-threatening and the other was treated at the scene, the highway patrol said.
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The Ohio collision was the second recent fatal crash in the U.S. involving high school students on a charter bus. In September, two people were killed and several others injured when a charter bus carrying high school [band] students to band camp veered off a New York highway.
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Read more here:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/ohio-interstate-crash-involving-busload-013429788.html
Seewer reported from Toledo, Ohio. Associated Press writers Ron Todt in Philadelphia; and Bruce Shipkowski in Toms River, New Jersey, contributed to this report.
Photo: Bus Accident (photo not credited on news page)
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