Chatham-Kent police say an 82-year-old man from Chatham has been charged with careless driving in connection with a bus crash on Merlin Rd. Monday morning.
Police say he was driving a bus carrying four students that rolled over onto its side across Merlin Rd. just south of Riverview Line at around 8:30am Monday. Two students were taken to the hospital as a precaution after the crash, but police reported no serious injuries.
Now the family of a 13-year-old girl on the bus say she suffered broken vertebrae in her lower spine and add she is at a London hospital for treatment.
Merlin Rd. is open to traffic again now that the bus has been cleared from the scene.
Emil Lesperance, who lives just down the road from the crash, was one of the first people at the scene and says for the most part, the few kids who were on the bus walked away alright.
"They were just getting the kids out and there was one girl inside," he says. "We tried to remove the front window but couldn't so we had to use the roof hatch. She had a little -- put a tooth through her lip... other than that everyone seemed fine."
Lesperance says there were no fuel leaks from the bus, so they were able to clear the scene and put the kids into a pick-up truck to keep warm.
"I talked to the driver and he said that he had to slide to the side of the road from oncoming traffic, and caught a little gravel, and I think he over-corrected," says Lesperance.
First responders work to clean up the scene of a school bus crash on Merlin Rd. just west of Chatham. March 26, 2018. (Photo by Matt Weverink)