Posted on 05/02/2007 5:50:30 PM PDT by upchuck
A sport-utility vehicle jumped a curb outside a middle school Wednesday afternoon and plowed into a group of children waiting for a bus, seriously injuring at least two of them, police and hospital officials said.
The incident occurred around 12:30 p.m. as Ralston Middle School was letting out for the day. Witnesses said the car, a 2004 Honda Pilot, was in the school parking lot when it hit the students and then rammed into a tree before stopping.
Chopper11 showed several emergency crews at the school. It also showed a gold SUV on the curb nearest to the school entrance. The SUV appeared to have been stopped by a tree planter.
NBC11 spoke to one student who witnessed the crash who described a scene of chaos following the crash.
"I saw many of my friends helping in the accident. I was devastated. I wasn't really prepared for it," Donald Heatherington said.
Five to seven children were hit, including several who were trapped under the SUV when it flipped onto its side, said Belmont Police Lt. Dan DeSmidt of Belmont police. Other students were injured or shaken up as they tried to escape the oncoming car, DeSmidt said .
A witness called into San Francisco radio station KCBS and said the victims are children. He said an SUV-type vehicle jumped a curb and struck the children, who were walking on a sidewalk.
He said people used a tire jack and their own muscles to lift the vehicle off the young people. He also said the injuries do not appear life-threatening, but that some of the victims did suffer broken bones.
The youngsters may have escaped getting crushed because of the vehicle's relatively high clearance and the angle at which it landed.
"They are little kids and they can fortunately fit under there," a fire official said.
In all, 13 children and the SUV's male driver were taken to a half-dozen area hospitals, according to Fire Chief Doug Fry of the Belmont-San Carlos Fire Department. Information on their injuries and conditions was not immediately available.
"All I can say is for some unknown reason the SUV lost control," Fry said.
The SUV's driver was at the school in Belmont to pick up a student, although DeSmidt said he did not know his relationship to the youngster.
The Honda was registered to Mauro H. Yan and Lorenza Y. Yan, according to the Department of Motor Vehicles. A telephone listing for Mauro Yan was not in service.
At the scene, investigators combed through debris spread over a 30-foot-wide radius, including the SUV's front grill and discarded sneakers and backpacks. They noted the absence of skid marks that would have indicated the driver tried to stop, but said it was too soon to draw conclusions about what that meant.
"It certainly all falls into the investigation, but at this point we have no cause to believe it was an intentional act," DeSmidt said.
Four teenage boys were admitted to Stanford Medical Center, two with potentially life-threatening injuries, including a head injury and a possibly fractured pelvis, hospital spokeswoman Jonnie Banks said. The other pair had superficial injuries, he said.
"I want to emphasize these are possibly life-threatening injuries. They are still being assessed. Any head injury could be life-threatening, as could any possibly fractured pelvis,' she said.
One young victim was taken by helicopter to Eden Medical Center's trauma center in Castro Valley but was likely to be treated and released, hospital spokeswoman Cassandra Phelps said.
Several other hospitals, including San Francisco General Hospital, reported receiving patients involved in the incident.
Students were leaving school at the end of a day shortened because of standardized testing, school officials said. They planned to open as usual on Thursday, but would cancel the tests for the remainder of the week.
"It happened right as school let out so I'm sure a lot of students saw what happened," said Lawrence Chu, office manager at Fellowship Bible Church, which is near the school.
The church's pastor, who is also the Belmont police chaplain, went to the school to counsel students shaken up after witnessing the crash, Chu said.
Sorry, I don’t believe this. SUVs don’t drive themselves...I bet there was a GUN behind the wheel! ....
Indeed there was, and it was smoking a cigarette!
***You are more right than you realize. I came from this town and I went to this middle school, Ralston. It’s mostly an upper middle class area. And guess how they were recently in the news?
Belmont to be first U.S. city to ban all smoking
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1739299/posts
Whew, was I ever glad to find out this SUV had a driver.
“A sport-utility vehicle jumped a curb”
If the driver had been in it the SUV would not have done this.
If the driver wasn’t elderly, I find myself more concerned by this:
“They noted the absence of skid marks that would have indicated the driver tried to stop, but said it was too soon to draw conclusions about what that meant.
“It certainly all falls into the investigation, but at this point we have no cause to believe it was an intentional act,” DeSmidt said.”
I feel your pain. One of the last places I lived before I left CA back in 1994 was San Mateo, so I am very familiar with the communities along the peninsula.
” Police are speculating it have have been distracted by a nice looking pickup truck.”
A nappy-bedded Ho(nda)?
I could make a comment about certain ethnic group’s driving abilities, but I may get banned. ;-)
So, do you have a good recipe for yakisoba :-)
bttt
Curious that we know the name of the people to whom the car was registered, and the fact that it was an SUV, but nothing about the driver. Starting with his name and religion.
An unborn fetus holding a gun while smoking was driving the SUV.
They should ban these Souped Up Veggies.
LOL
I’ve no idea what that is. :)
Time out !!!!
"The SUV's driver was at the school in Belmont to pick up a student, although DeSmidt said he did not know his relationship to the youngster."
"The Honda was registered to Mauro H. Yan and Lorenza Y. Yan, according to the Department of Motor Vehicles. A telephone listing for Mauro Yan was not in service."
I got kids all over the place going hither, thither and yon ... this hospital .. that hospital ... every bump, bruise, scrape, fracture identified and described
Cops here, cops there ...
Why, this story is just so complete.
Except ..
The driver is not necesarilly in the car and the car is identified as being registered to someone named Yan ...
And not a word about "the driver" or Yan or police reports or arrests or ...
A woman who identified herself as Mauro Yan’s wife but would not give her name told the San Francisco Chronicle that her 70-year-old husband was driving, and that he thought the SUV’s brakes had failed.
At the scene, investigators combed through debris, including the SUV’s front grill and discarded sneakers and backpacks. They noted the absence of skid marks that would have indicated the driver tried to stop, but said it was too soon to draw conclusions about what that meant.
“It certainly all falls into the investigation, but at this point we have no cause to believe it was an intentional act,” DeSmidt said.
You just described some of the paintings by that creepy Swiss artist H.R. Giger.
In the Gay Area, even the burbs are filled to the brim with moonbats.
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