Van slams into school bus stop, injuring children

As many as 10 White Oak Middle School students taken to hospital after collision

Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2006

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by Danny Jacobs and Fred Lewis

Staff Writers

Click here to enlarge this photo

Chris Rossi⁄The Gazette

A police officer carries damaged umbrellas from the scene of a crash, in which the driver of a white Ford van lost control of the vehicle and slammed into a group of White Oak Middle School students waiting at a bus stop on Piney Branch Road Friday morning.

Some middle school students remain hospitalized after a Friday crash in which 10 were hurt after a van lost control and hit the children as they waited at a bus stop at the entrance to an apartment complex on Piney Branch Road in Silver Spring.

Three female students are still in the hospital, according to several students interviewed Tuesday afternoon at Forest Park Apartments, where the accident occurred. Those students, and a report on WUSA-TV’s Web site, said one student’s leg had to be amputated; police and school officials, however, would not confirm any medical information.

The white Ford van, driven by Sebastian Vasquez Vasquez, 29, of the 8100 block of 15th Avenue in Hyattsville, was traveling north on Piney Branch Road between New Hampshire and Carroll avenues about 7:10 a.m. when the driver lost control of the vehicle, according to Montgomery County Police. The van struck a curb and hit a fire hydrant before slamming into the children at the bus stop, according to a news release.

Vasquez has not been charged by police. He could not be reached for comment for this story. It was raining that morning; police did not say whether or not the wet roads were a factor in the crash.

One sixth-grade boy, two seventh-grade boys, two seventh-grade girls, four eighth-grade boys and an eighth-grade girl were taken to Washington Adventist Hospital in Takoma Park and Children’s Hospital in Washington, D.C. An 11th student was treated and released at the scene, school officials said. By 10:15 a.m., three of the four children at one hospital had been released, officials said.

On Tuesday, the first day of school after the crash, students walking home after being dropped off the bus recalled screams, blood, a rolling fire hydrant and students helping one another the morning of the accident.

Van Lingoua, an eighth-grader who said he suffered cuts and bruises in the accident, said, ‘‘If you saw what happened, you can’t get it out of your mind.”

Additional guidance counselors brought to the school Friday morning to aid students remained at the school Tuesday. Also on Tuesday, the school bus stop where the accident occurred was moved from the entrance to the driveway in front of Forest Park Apartments up the driveway to an area inside the building’s property, according to building management and Montgomery County Public Schools.

School continued as normal on Friday, and parents of White Oak students were sent an automated telephone message notifying them of the accident.

The students interviewed Tuesday said it was difficult going back to school.

‘‘It feels empty without them there,” Brandon Fraser, an eighth-grader at the school, said of his injured classmates.

Police have not determined the cause of Friday morning’s crash and are asking witnesses to call the county police’s Collision Reconstruction Unit at 301-840-2435.