HAVRE DE GRACE, Md. (AP) - A bus carrying dozens of Pennsylvania eighth-graders to Washington, D.C., for a field trip overturned on Interstate 95 in northeastern Maryland on Monday. Officials said one child and one teacher were seriously injured.
The bus carrying 26 children from Charles W. Henry School, three chaperones and the driver overturned at least once on the highway near Havre de Grace, Maryland State Police spokesman Greg Shipley said. One child and one adult were flown to trauma centers in Maryland and Delaware. Others were taken to hospitals by ambulance, police said. No deaths have been reported.
One teacher was flown to the University of Maryland Medical Center's trauma center in Baltimore, but was still going through triage, the University of Maryland Medical System said in a statement. A spokeswoman for the Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, Delaware, said a student had been taken there.
The University of Maryland said in a statement 17 patients were taken to its hospital in Harford County. Nine patients were taken to another of the university's hospitals in Havre de Grace. Two children were taken from a Maryland hospital to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
Dr. Steven Fountain, an emergency physician at Harford Memorial Hospital, said at a news conference he did not expect any of the patients to be held overnight. He said many of the patients suffered muscle strains and contusions.
Police in Maryland said a car tried to pass the bus clipped it, causing it to overturn.
State Police said the southbound car lost control Monday morning as it tried to pass the bus on Interstate 95 in northeastern Maryland, came back across travel lanes and clipped the front of the bus.
Troopers said the driver of the passenger vehicle is from Maryland, and he refused medical treatment at the scene.
A group of Philadelphia police recruits on a commercial bus behind the overturned bus stopped to help, he said.
Philadelphia schools superintendent William Hite Jr. said at a news conference Charles W. Henry School will remain open all night so parents can be reunited with their children.