A school bus traveling towards the Long Island Aquarium on Wednesday morning met with an accident in Riverhead.
It was reported that nine were injured and sent to hospital. According to the police, none of the injuries were very serious among any of the nine that went to the hospital.
The Riverhead Town police stated that on a fine Wednesday, the accident took place at around 11:22 A.M. The school bus just left a Bronx day camp and was headed to Riverhead when it “hit into the rear of a pickup truck,” is how police described it.
The accident took place around West Main Street’s corner, a little west of the junction with Raynor Avenue. According to police, the GMC pickup, which was stuck in traffic, was stopped eastbound while letting another vehicle turn. Just then a school bus traveling behind the pickup, which is owned by Boro Transport of Brooklyn, failed to stop and crashed into the back of the pickup.
The school bus in the accident was on a field trip to an aquarium on Long Island, and according to the police, had 32 children and nine adults on the bus. Out of the nine that were injured, there were four children with ages between 6 to 12, as well as 4 adults from the bus, the ninth being the bus driver himself. The injured were sent off to the Peconic Bay Medical Center and according to the police all were stated to have “non-life-threatening injuries.”
The Mastic Fire Department, Mattituck Fire Department, along with the Riverhead Town Volunteer Ambulance Corps, the Manorville Fire Department and Wading River Fire Department all volunteered and worked together in transporting the injured.
The bus in the accident was brought in for an inspection after the accident by the Department of Transportation, said the police. The bus driver and the pickup driver were not issued summons. What triggered the terrific response of emergency responders, after the shoulder injury of a child was reported, turned out to be a pretty “minor accident,” as police stated.
The accident scene on Main Street was misreported in the beginning as a huge commotion, because of the presence of all the emergency vehicles and manpower through the East End coming in on the scene to help. Thankfully, it turned out to be just a “minor accident” with “non-life-threatening injuries” to only nine people out of the forty-one people on board.