THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, January 25, 1996 TAG: 9601250415
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KAREN JOLLY DAVIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: HOPETON LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines
A distracted driver plowed his school bus into a roadside ditch Wednesday morning, sending 25 high school students to emergency rooms in Virginia and Maryland.
One girl suffered a broken pelvis; other injuries were minor.
It was the third bus accident on the Eastern Shore since November. This time, the unlucky vehicle was Arcadia High School Bus 13.
``Bad choice of numbers,'' said Bill Owings, Accomack County school superintendent, after a long day of comforting parents and conferring with insurance officials.
Owings said the bus driver, 46-year-old Benjamin Custis II of Parksley, was northbound on state Route 316 when his wheels caught in the soft right-hand shoulder. The bus skidded across the road and toppled on its side into the ditch.
``I think what happened is he overcompensated,'' said Owings. Custis was charged with reckless driving. When Owings asked police to give the driver a breath test, they found no trace of alcohol.
Custis told police that a disruptive student caught his attention, and he swerved when he looked in a mirror at the students behind him.
School officials are investigating that account, Owings said. No students were disciplined Wednesday, and no immediate action was taken by the school system against Custis.
In the first of the two earlier accidents, a truck hit the rear of a school bus Nov. 6 in neighboring Northampton County. At least two students and the bus driver were seriously injured in that collision. In the other collision, in December, a car hit a school bus in Accomack County. There were no serious injuries.
Owings said he was in the county administrator's office at 7:40 a.m. Wednesday when he heard a call for help from Custis come in over a scanner radio. The school superintendent ran to his car and raced to the accident.
``The kids were wonderful. They were taking care of themselves,'' he said. Some of the injured teenagers helped to take others who were hurt out the vehicle's rear emergency door. There were 51 students on the bus.
It didn't take long before parents began to arrive at the accident scene near Hopeton, about two miles north of Parksley.
``This is a small area and everyone has a scanner,'' said Parks Abrams, a member of the Parksley Volunteer Fire Company. His rescue team was the first to respond to the 911 alert.
Six rescue squads from Accomack County transported 17 students to Northampton-Accomack Memorial Hospital in Nassawadox. Parents took six others there by car, and two students were taken by their parents to Peninsula Regional Medical Center in Salisbury, Md.
The Nassawadox hospital was ready for the influx of patients when the first ambulances arrived at 8:15 a.m. Employees manned every entrance to help students and their families.
By coincidence, the hospital's safety committee was meeting Wednesday morning to discuss disaster preparedness. When a ``code yellow'' alert was sounded, some members thought it was a clever joke arranged by the safety chairwoman Bobbi Findlay.
``I accused Bobbi of calling a drill, and she assured me she did not,'' said hospital spokeswoman Candy Farlow. ``It's kind of ironic.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color graphic
Area shown: School Bus accident
KEYWORDS: ACCIDENT TRAFFIC SCHOOL BUS EASTERN SHORE INJURIES by CNB