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.
Ralston Avenue is steeply down hill there. If someone was riding their brakes all the way down from 92, and the pads were thin, well ..... this could have been the result.
You are disputing my ability to count paragraphs?
I'm just a victim of my government schooling!
Prayer ping.
The school is on a steep hill. I went there. A motorcycle cop used to hide near the parking lot exit and wait for speeders coming down the hill.
I went there.
So did I. Small world.
Go Rams! (At least I think it was the Rams)
I work half a mile from the school and drive by it coming and going to the office.
First, be nice. These are just kids, parents, and grandparents. Some of the comments on this thread sound like the article is about global-warming-enviro-wackos, and that’s not appropriate.
Second, the way the school and driveway is laid out, it seems most likely that the driver was approaching the turn onto the main street and I’m guessing intended to put on the break, and hit the gas by accident. He would already have been close to where the accident occured, in my opinion close enough that it would have been difficult to figure out the mistake (gas pedel instead of break) and correct before hitting the curb.
Third, this is a grandfather to the kids he’s picking up: a few of you have parents who help take care of your kids. Imagine this happening to them, and be nice.
Thank you for explaining how the accident could have happened.
Somehow, you have totally missed the purpose of this post.
According to this article, the 70 year-old driver says his brakes failed.
But even that article makes it sound like this tragedy is the fault of the eeeevvvvviiiillllll SUV.
How ‘bout this for a headline:
Driver looses control of SUV and plows into students — trapping four, hurting nine.
Not saying anything, but, there are a number of after school and weekend users of rooms there, from, shall we say, the syllable challenged surname segment of the population.
I lived in the bay area my whole life and have seen or been involved in about 18 incidents/accidents wherein the guilty party was a citizen of an asian country. The stereotype is true!
More generally, anyone who learned to drive a couple decades or more after their 16th birthday. In these parts, that group is 90% syllable challenged surname.
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