13 elementary students, driver hurt when pickup hits school bus north of Tri-Cities
Thirteen elementary school students and a truck driver were taken to hospitals in the Tri-Cities on Monday afternoon after a dramatic bus crash northwest of the Hanford nuclear site.
A Wahluke school bus was taking students home about 3:45 p.m. on a rural Grant County road when a pickup truck failed to stop at an intersection, said Kyle Foreman, the sheriff’s office public information officer.
Wahluke School District serves about 2,500 students around the Mattawa area. The 17 students on the bus were third- to eighth-graders headed home for the day.
As the bus approached Road 27 Southwest, thick fog obscured the driver’s view of an oncoming pickup truck.
It appears the pickup truck driver also didn’t see the bus and didn’t stop at at stop sign, said Foreman. The bus driver tried to swerve out of the way, but they collided in the intersection with Road O Southwest.
The bus spun and flipped, Foreman told the Tri-City Herald.
Thirteen students were taken to Trios Southridge Hospital in Kennewick and Kadlec Regional Medical Center in Richland. None of the children had life threatening injuries.
The pickup driver, Jose Ramirez, 48, of Mattawa, had serious, but not life-threatening injuries. He was taken to Kadlec, said officials.
The bus driver, Marco Bravo Guerrero, 40, of Desert Aire, was checked by medics on the scene, but declined any medical treatment.
This story was originally published January 23, 2024 at 10:09 AM.