Española police continue to investigate a crash that injured students in the city. A bus carrying students from Española Valley High School was hit by a pickup truck soon after it was loaded with students heading home.
“They hadn’t dropped no one off of the bus,” Alexandra Garcia, an Española Valley High School student, said to KRQE. “We had just come from the middle school and it was fully packed.”
The collision with the truck caused the school bus to flip. “I remember feeling the bus, like something hit the bus and then it just started spinning after that, and it felt like it was slamming on the ground and then it just skid,” Marshall Garcia, a student at Carlos F. Vigil Middle School, told KRQE. “The bus driver was stuck in her seat and I had to help her out of that.”
First responders quickly arrived on the scene. “When you receive calls like [that] you are always planning for the worst and hoping for the best,” Ron Padilla, fire chief of the Española Fire Department, said. “When you’re en route over there, you’ve got a lot going through your mind on how you’re going to react or assess the situation.”
Three teens were reportedly taken to the hospital with minor injuries while others were treated on site and released. “My arm has fractures and a cast currently but I’m okay,” Garcia said. “We were all just kind of scared and just checking on each other, making sure everyone was okay and that no one was hurt or injured seriously.”
Whether the drivers will face charges remains undetermined.
The accident occurred just a few weeks after a similar crash involving Albuquerque students and a man who was possibly street racing, investigators said.