Trapped aide rescued from wrecked school bus following Miami crash
A school bus and a garbage truck collided early Thursday morning in Miami, trapping at least one person on board and setting off a major rescue attempt.
The crash happened in Liberty City at the intersection of Northwest 12th Avenue and 67th Street, a few blocks from Miami Northwestern Senior High School.
No kids were on the bus at the time of the crash, according to Miami Fire Rescue.
Photos from the crash scene show the front and side of the the school bus severely damaged as dozens of firefighters huddled around it. Detectives say the school bus was traveling north when it collided with the right rear side of the garbage truck, which was reversing out of Holmes Elementary School.
Fire-rescue crews had to cut through the bus to remove the trapped school bus aide, said spokesman Lt. Ignatius Carroll. The “extensive extraction” took 35 minutes, he said. He was rescued just after 7 a.m.
The 45-year-old man was taken as a trauma alert to Jackson Memorial Hospital. Police say he was pinned inside the bus and injured his legs. He is in “critical but stable condition,” as of Thursday afternoon.
The female bus driver was taken to North Shore Hospital for minor injuries and is expected to be OK. The workers inside the garbage truck were not injured. The truck is owned by a private company.
The bus was on its way to pick up students and take them to Miami Beach Senior High, according to a spokeswoman for Miami-Dade County Public Schools.
The school bus was towed later Thursday.
Miami police shut down Northwest 12th Avenue from 62nd Street to 71st Street during the rescue. The cause of the crash is still under investigation.
This report will be updated as more information becomes available.
Note: We have now learned that the trapped man was not the school bus driver but the school bus aide, and have updated the story and headline to reflect that.
This story was originally published September 19, 2019 at 7:19 AM with the headline "Trapped aide rescued from wrecked school bus following Miami crash."
