ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) \u2014 Eleven middle school students and their driver were injured when a school bus jumped a curb Thursday and rammed into trees in Southern California, authorities said.<\/p>\n
Three of the injured \u2014 the driver and two of the children \u2014 were taken to hospitals in critical condition after the 3:30 p.m. crash, Anaheim police Lt. Bob Dunn said. The other nine students had minor injuries, and most of them were released to their parents.<\/p>\n
Television news reports show the Orange Unified School District bus tilted sideways and leaning against a tree on a roadside embankment next to Anaheim Hills Golf Course. Police said no other vehicles were involved in the crash.<\/p>\n
The driver was trapped inside the bus, and firefighters removed him before he was taken to the hospital.<\/p>\n
The bus was taking students home from an after-school activity at El Rancho Charter Middle School in Anaheim when it crashed, said a statement from Michael L. Christensen, superintendent of the Orange Unified School District.<\/p>\n
Jak Pintches, 14, said the bus went off the road during a turn and hit a tree and a lamp post.<\/p>\n
“I flew out of my seat and hit the other side of the bus” and injured his back, the teenager told the Orange County Register.<\/p>\n
Part of a tree went into the bus and cut a girl on the leg, he said.<\/p>\n
After the crash, someone ran up and told everyone to get off because the bus was leaking gasoline, he said.<\/p>\n
The California Highway Patrol, which is heading the investigation, said preliminary evidence shows the driver may not have hit the brakes before crashing.<\/p>\n
“I don’t see any skid marks,” CHP spokesman Florentino Olivera told the Los Angeles Times. “It looks like he went straight into the tree.”<\/p>\n
Witness Andrea Shurtz, one of many people driving nearby who saw the crash, said the bus was going very fast when it hit a curb and appeared to go airborne.<\/p>\n
“It came flying down the hill,” Shurtz told KABC-TV, “and took out trees along the way.”<\/p>\n
Shurtz said the driver and several students were hanging out of the bus’s windows and yelling for help from passing drivers.<\/p>\n
“Kids were screaming. Gas was pouring out the back,” Shurtz said. “People just came running from everywhere.”<\/p>\n
The bus was equipped with seat belts, police said, but it wasn’t clear how many of the students were wearing them at the time of the crash.<\/p>\n
The crash was in Anaheim Hills, an affluent community within the city of Anaheim about 10 miles east of Disneyland and 30 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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