Mrs-Boop
My Babies
Member since 5/05 4956 total posts
Name:
Jaime
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Poor Little Boy!!
I honestly don't know who is to blame for this one, I think it was just a horrible, horrible accident!!!
Run over by bus
Boy, 6, who had exited vehicle and apparently ran back toward it, was pinned under wheel, killed
This story was reported by staff writers EMERSON CLARRIDGE, CHRISTINE ARMARIO and ZACHARY R. DOWDY
It was written by DOWDY.
November 7, 2006
A 6-year-old, described by friends as "always happy," died in a Nassau hospital shortly after he was pinned under a school bus that had just dropped him off in North Amityville yesterday, Suffolk police and witnesses said.
According to relatives, Markus Smith, a first-grader at Susan E. Wiley Elementary School, died in the intensive care unit of the Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow.
The cause of the accident is under investigation, police said. Officials at the bus company, Educational Bus Transportation Inc., of Copiague, declined to comment.
Witnesses who gathered at the scene said the crash occurred shortly after 4 p.m. at Avon Drive and Somerset Road in North Amityville, after children had filed out of the bus.
The bus, driving south on Avon Drive and at a corner of the intersection, dropped off Markus, who first walked eastbound to cross the street.
But as the bus pulled off - and as one witness said the driver missed a warning from another motorist who saw the accident was about to happen - Markus, inexplicably, ran back toward the bus and became pinned under the driver's front side wheel.
As several of his classmates on and off the bus and parents looked on in horror, witnesses said Markus' mother, Lorena Smith, walked up a few minutes after the incident with one of her daughters. She saw Markus' sneaker under the tire and cried out in pain, said her brother-in-law, Calvin Smith.
"Please! Please don't let that be my son," one witness James Parker, 12, of North Amityville, quoted her as saying. "They started breaking out crying."
Latishia Willis, 26, of North Amityville, said her 6-year-old daughter, Tahleya, had just gotten off the same bus and that a driver in an oncoming car shouted "Hey! Hey! Hey!" when he saw the accident was imminent.
The driver blew his horn as Markus darted back across the street and the bus began to pull into the street.
"It was too late," Willis said. "The guy couldn't get the driver's attention on time."
Early yesterday evening, Markus' backpack and coat lay in the street, still under the wheel of the bus, after emergency workers had removed him from the scene.
Yellow police tape and the grim faces of about 60 onlookers marked the scene as investigators tried to reconstruct the fatal crash.
Friends of Markus, who was popular even among older kids, described him as jovial and good-natured.
Teasia Tutt, 15, a friend, described Markus as a "mad cool" kid.
"I'm in shock," she said. "I have no other words for it."
Sadness overwhelmed administrators and teachers at the Wiley school where the young boy had made a mark.
"Our hearts and souls go out to the family and to the kids on the bus," said Copiague Schools Superintendent William Bolton.
He said the school is closed today, for Election Day, but that counselors will be on hand to comfort teachers as well as students all week.
Educational Bus Transportation Inc. has been involved in other accidents with injuries in the past two decades.
In 1997, a pair of school buses, both operated by the Copiague firm, collided, with one overturning at a North Amityville intersection.
In all, 15 children and four adults were taken to area hospitals with minor cuts and bruises, but none seriously hurt after a crash at East Street and Poplar Road.
In April 1997, three adults were hurt when an EBT school bus, which was carrying no students, struck a UPS delivery truck in a storm-related accident.
In May 1987, six Educational Bus Transportation buses were taken out of service for inspection violations, including one whose driver was issued a misdemeanor summons for faulty steering.
The inspections were conducted by Suffolk police and state transportation employees. As many as 28 were taken out of service for safety violations, including faulty steering and brakes.
Copyright 2006 Newsday Inc.
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