School bus carrying 9 kids in Poughkeepsie flips after crash

POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. (WABC) -- A full-size school bus carrying nine children overturned in Poughkeepsie Wednesday morning, but thankfully, all the injuries were minor.

The bus ended up on its side on Spackenkill and Cedar Valley Roads after it hit a car around 8 a.m., with the crumpled Chevy Cavalier nearby.

The scene looked terrible, but could have been so much worse. The bus was in the process of dropping off kids at various parochial schools at the time.

The accident took place when the driver of the Cavalier tried to avoid rear ending a minivan that had stopped to make a left turn. But the car swerved into the other lane and directly into the path of the bus.

The students and bus driver escaped via emergency hatches on the roof of bus, and incredibly there were no serious injuries to students. But the driver of the car had to be rescued and extricated.

The driver of the minivan, which had four children aboard, was not hurt.

Students were taken to area hospitals to be checked out, while an accident reconstruction team spent hours processing the scene.

The wreck closed the road for several hours.

The bus is operated by Wappingers Central School District.

"I just climbed out of the bus and the next thing I knew, just blood everywhere," said one of the injured students, Tiana Porco. She limped out of the emergency room, her arm in a sling.

She is sore, but otherwise lucky to have escaped serious injury after the school bus smashed into the car. "I tried to save myself and tried to save my head from hitting the bus and I bruised my arm," said Tiana.

"Some of the children on the bus had complaints of bumps and bruises, some had no complaints at all, but since the bus rolled over and the mechanism of injury involved, we wanted everybody to go to the hospital and be checked out," said Capt. Bill Steenbergh of the Arlington Fire Department.

The Wappingers school district immediately notified parents.

"At first I panicked, and then I really didn't know and was aware that the bus actually had turned over, so that was kind of a good thing I think, and once I realized that bus turned over I was very concerned," said parent Shana Porco.