CLEVELAND (AP) — Screaming children jumped off a school bus onto a road as the bus rolled downhill and crashed today while the driver was in a gas station restroom, the station’s manager said. Fifteen children suffered mostly minor injuries.
The bus crashed into a bridge support pillar after rolling away from the gas station across the street from Progressive Field, home of the Cleveland Indians.
The children jumped out of the side door and landed in the street, said the gas station manager, Conner Strickland. “I’m surprised none of them got hit. There was a lot of traffic,” he said.
Fire officials took 15 children to hospitals with mostly minor injuries, said Larry Gray, a fire department spokesman. None of the injuries were life-threatening, he said.
The driver was taken to a hospital with chest pains, Gray said.
Strickland said he saw the bus rolling and banged on the restroom to alert the driver. Then he and another employee chased the bus down the hill.
A boy who jumped behind the wheel steered the bus into a pillar to stop it from going farther down the hill, Gray said. “This kid did some quick thinking,” he said.
The bus was carrying 27 students to Arts Academy, a charter school, Gray said.
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