Driver dead, seven students injured after school bus flips into Miss. ditch, cops say
A school bus crash in Mississippi Tuesday left the driver dead and seven children on board injured, media outlets report.
The bus was found rolled over on the side of the road near Highway 72 in one of the state’s northernmost counties bordering Tennessee, WMC reported. The cause is unknown.
No other vehicles were involved in the crash, which left the bus overturned in a ditch in Benton County just after starting its route, the Mississippi Highway Patrol told WREG.
The injured children were taken to hospitals in Mississippi and Tennessee, WTVA reported.
Two are at a hospital in Olive Branch, Mississippi, and the remaining five were transported by ambulance and helicopter to Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, according to the media outlet.
WREG reported two of the children “had to be airlifted.”
The injured range in age from 7 to 13 years old, according to WMC.
Troopers have not said whether the driver was killed by the wreck or if a possible medical issue contributed, WTVA reported.
But Benton County Schools Superintendent Steve Bostick told WMC “he believes the driver had some kind of medical emergency,” the media outlet reported.
The driver, identified as Chester Cole, had been with the district for five years and was “trusted and dependable,” Bostick said, according to WMC.
Troopers are still investigating.
