School bus flips in Lancaster County hit-and-run crash

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Wednesday, May 17, 2017
School bus flips in Lancaster County hit-and-run crash
School bus flips in Lancaster County hit-and-run crash. Brian Taff reports during Action News at 4pm on May 17, 2017.

EAST LAMPETER TWP., Pa. (WPVI) -- A school bus flipped on its side in a hit-and-run accident involving four vehicles in Lancaster County, sending more than a dozen people to the hospital, authorities said.

One of those people injured was a student who was ejected from the bus.

The Lancaster Mennonite school bus was taking students to school in East Lampeter Township on Wednesday morning when a sedan trying to pass two tractor-trailers and their escort vehicles hit the rear of one of the escort vehicles, the Lancaster County district attorney's office said.

Watch raw video from school bus accident in Lancaster County, Pa. that sent more than a dozen students to an area hospital.

The escort vehicle was pushed into the oncoming lane and sideswiped the bus, causing the bus to impact one tractor-trailer's load and tip onto its side, prosecutors said.

The 14 students, the bus driver and another driver were taken to a hospital, where a spokesman said two students with trauma injuries were being transferred to children's hospitals and everyone else was treated and released.

Lancaster Mennonite spokesman Gary Hiller said the bus was carrying 12 high school students, one middle school student and one Locust Grove elementary student.

"Our focus has been on the physical and emotional well-being of our students rather than the cause and who is responsible," Hiller said. "We express concern for the two who are still in the hospital."

Courtesy: Chris Kennedy

Authorities issued an alert for the newer-model light-colored sedan and its male driver, saying the vehicle was expected to have front-bumper damage.

"There's a very good possibility that this vehicle, as it was traveling eastbound prior to the accident scene, may have been passing other vehicles," township police Chief John Bowman said.

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