LAKE PLACID, Fla. (WFLA) – Children on board the school bus that crashed in Highlands County spoke to News Channel 8 on Thursday.
Miraculously, all 39 students and the bus driver managed to get out alive.
Erika Alvarez was sitting near the back of the bus as a big rig slammed into it as it stopped to pick up kids at the bus stop.
“We felt like a big hit,” Alvarez said. “And then like, we hit the seat really hard with our chests and that’s when we started flipping over.”
The impact smashed her into the window.
“We had kids [with] backpacks hitting us in the face, slamming us, hitting us on the side, and the kids falling and hitting the roof of the bus. It was really scary,” Alvarez said.
She looked around and saw blood everywhere and heard kids screaming for help.Related: Student, parents scramble to rescue kids from horrific school bus crash
Her cousin helped kick out the windshield so kids could get out.
“The door was up so it would be harder to get out that way and that was just a simpler way to get out,” said Luiz Rodriguez.
“My heart just melted [to] my feet, you know,” said his mother, Beronica Perez.
Parents waited nearby, wondering and waiting.
“I was crying,” said Pamela Rodriguez. “I was crying a lot. I was worried because that’s my baby, you know?
More than half of the children on the bus ended up in the hospital.
Alvarez required x-rays, but made it out of the crash with bruising on her legs.
The students told us the bus driver knew this was coming.
“She always told us that we had to leave the front two seats open for the kids when they get on so they could hurry and sit in the seats so we can hurry up and leave,” Alvarez said of the bus stopping at that particular stop.
“She said it was a very dangerous road. Very dangerous for the bus to be on.”
Parents tell 8 On Your Side they have complained about the bus stop.
They hope now that something will be done.
The kids who lived through the crash hope so too.
“I’m scared. What if it happens again on the bus in the same spot?” said Alvarez.
Highlands County Deputy Superintendent Andrew Lethbridge tells News Channel 8 the district is working to put a team together to evaluate the incident, the bus stop, as well as other bus stops.
Lethbridge also confirmed the bus has seat belts and that some of the children were wearing them and others were not.
The kids are supposed to wear the seat belts while on the bus and the driver is supposed to remind them of that.
According to Lethbridge, the driver’s driving and employment records were clean.
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