Thread: 10 Children Injured as Van Crashes At Bus Stop

Summary: Illegal Immigrant injures 10 children – one maimed for life after leg is amputated

Investigators with the Montgomery County police collision reconstruction unit spoke at length to the driver, Sebastian Vasquez, 29, of Hyattsville. Police said he had not been charged as of last night, and the investigation was ongoing.

Ascencio said Vasquez works at a carpeting company in Landover, which is where he was headed yesterday. He described Vasquez, a recent immigrant from Guatemala, as a responsible employee. Ascencio said he was not aware of any mechanical problems that might have contributed to the crash.

Relatives say doctors had to amputate one child's leg this afternoon, after a van crashed into a crowd of youngsters waiting in Takoma Park for their school bus.

NOTE: Montgomery County is well-known as a haven for illegal aliens.

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Written By Bruce Leshan
9NEWS NOW
Last Updated: 9/1/2006 11:23:31 PM

Relatives say doctors had to amputate one child's leg this afternoon, after a van crashed into a crowd of youngsters waiting in Takoma Park for their school bus.

White Oak Middle School student Isaiah Reed tells 9NEWS NOW that he heard the van's tires screeching and tried to scramble up a rock wall to get away.

Backpacks and umbrellas littered Piney Branch Road, where perhaps as many as 25 children were waiting at the bus stop this morning.

Eleven youngsters were hurt, 10 of them badly enough to be taken to hospitals. Rescue workers classified six of the children as suffering serious injuries. School officials on Friday night said the students' conditions ranged from good to critical.

Police say Sebastian Vasquez, 29, of Hyattsville, told them he lost control of his van coming around a curve on the rain-slick road.

He hit a fire hydrant, and then slid into the children waiting on the sidewalk.

Police have yet to decide whether to charge him with a traffic violation.

Parents say it's a dangerous stretch of road. They want Montgomery County Schools to move the bus stop up into the Forest Park Apartments, where most of the children live.

Reed says he sprained his knee, but is haunted by the screams of his friends all around him.

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10 Children Injured as Van Crashes At Bus Stop (Update)

By Ernesto Londoño and Lori Aratani
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, September 2, 2006; B01

As commuters whisked by on rain-slicked Piney Branch Road, a group of Silver Spring middle school students at their bus stop stood horrified when a white van traveling west struck a fire hydrant and careened toward them.

"Everyone started screaming: 'Watch out, that car is coming!' " said Van Lingoua, one of the students injured in the crash, who was standing next to about a dozen schoolmates who also live at the Forest Park Apartments in Silver Spring.

Ten children were taken to hospitals; at least two were injured critically. Police said none of the injuries was life-threatening, but six of the children remained hospitalized last night.

Van, 12, an eighth-grader at White Oak Middle School, said he and his schoolmates had been talking about whether the rain was going to ruin their weekend as they waited for the bus, which typically picks them up at 7:10 a.m. in the 9300 block of Piney Branch Road.

As the van headed toward them, he and others tried to jump out of its path. Most moved too late.

"It was a bloody scene," Van said yesterday, speaking calmly after being discharged from the hospital with a bandage over his scraped elbow. "Most of the kids were just lying on the street screaming for help."

The driver of the van stepped out of the vehicle, apparently unharmed, and wobbled around, Van said.

Some of the uninjured children ran home for help. Several commuters stopped and offered to call 911 and made their cellphones available to the children.

Paramedics from Montgomery and Prince George's counties responded within minutes and called for backup as the scope of the crash became clear.

"Every time an ambulance arrived, someone said they needed two more," Van said.

At least one student was airlifted to a hospital.

Some parents made it to the bus stop within minutes, but others who had left home before their children did learned about the accident at work.

Miriam Alvarez, mother of one of the critically injured children, returned to the apartment complex, sobbing, to find crime-scene tape roping off the entrance. The van, with its right front tire blown out, was still parked at the site of the crash amid umbrellas, book bags and other items left on the ground.

"They haven't told us anything," she said. "Only that they had to take him in a helicopter."

Investigators with the Montgomery County police collision reconstruction unit spoke at length to the driver, Sebastian Vasquez Vasquez, 29, of Hyattsville. Police said he had not been charged as of last night, and the investigation was ongoing.

"We're trying to get some idea of what exactly happened," said Cpl. Sonia Pruitt, a police spokeswoman. "We want to know why the driver lost control of the vehicle."

Vasquez could not be reached yesterday. Humberto Ascencio, Vasquez's boss and the owner of the van, said Vasquez was shaken and concerned about the children. Vasquez went home yesterday afternoon.

"He's nervous," Ascencio said. "The only thing he told me was that the van slid, and he was unable to do anything. He did everything in his power not to crash into anyone."

Ascencio said Vasquez works at a carpeting company in Landover, which is where he was headed yesterday. He described Vasquez, a recent immigrant from Guatemala, as a responsible employee. Ascencio said he was not aware of any mechanical problems that might have contributed to the crash.

Brian Edwards, a spokesman for the Montgomery school system, said those injured were a sixth-grade girl, two seventh-grade boys, two seventh-grade girls, four eighth-grade boys and an eighth-grade girl. The school system did not release their names.

Van's mother, Therese Lingoua, complained yesterday about the location of the bus stop on a main road.

"They should move the bus stop inside," she said, saying she and other parents think the bus driver should drive into the apartment complex, which has several four-story buildings, rather than make the children walk down to Piney Branch Road. "This place is dangerous."

Edwards said school officials make an effort to designate bus stops in locations that are safe. He said the students who live at Forest Park Apartments will be picked up inside the complex in the future.

"We don't want students traumatized by having to go to the same location every day," Edwards said. "This is an incredible reminder that people need to slow down around bus stops."

Classes at White Oak, which is located along a busy stretch of New Hampshire Avenue, went on as scheduled.

Carol Dahlberg, principal at the 800-student Silver Spring campus, where students began classes Monday, told students and staff about the accident during morning announcements. White Oak parents were also notified through the school's automated phone system.

Nancy Navarro, a school board member and former White Oak PTSA co-president, stopped at the school briefly yesterday.

"This is a school that's close to my heart," said Navarro, whose daughter graduated from White Oak in June. "It's a very tight-knit community, and staff is doing an outstanding job providing support. But to hear about something like this is every parent's nightmare."

Edwards said Superintendent Jerry D. Weast stopped to visit families at Washington Adventist Hospital in Takoma Park after hearing about the accident.

Seven counselors were available to students at White Oak who had questions or concerns about the accident, Edwards said.

Carla Calhoun, president of White Oak's Parent Teacher Student Association, said she drove to the school as soon as she heard about the accident.

"I wanted to see if there was anything the PTSA could do to work with the administration," she said. "We will do what we can to help."

Calhoun, whose daughter is an eighth-grader at the school, said several White Oak parents also stopped by the campus to make sure students were all right.

"We're a very tight-knit community," she said. "It doesn't matter if you've been here a year or 20 years, you feel very welcome."

As police cleared the accident scene about 11 a.m., several people stood in the rain, staring at the van in disbelief.

María Rodriguez, 31, said that her niece, a student at White Oak, would have been at the bus stop but that the girl and her mother uncharacteristically overslept yesterday.

"How fortunate that they woke up late today," Rodriguez said. "God knows what he's doing."

Staff writers Dan Morse and Nancy Trejos and staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.

Summary: Illegal Immigrant injures 10 children – one maimed for life after leg is amputated

Is this your summary or did the illegal immigrant report come from a news media source? Do you have a link that identifies the drive as an illegal immigrant? Thanks.

the initial story is from the Washington Post, which blurs the line and rolls up illegal aliens into the category of Immigrant, with no reference to legal or illegal.

Reporting that Mr. Vasquez is a recent immigrant from Guatemala is the Post's way of saying he's illegal without actually saying it. Guatemala is not among those countries with Protected Status; visas are not granted to people with minimal skills and education. Carpet installers are not deemed "skilled" labor that requires higher education. To the best of my knowledge (please correct me if I'm wrong - and I'm sure you will), carpet installers were not on the list of jobs Americans WON'T do!

With the elections so close, this is a very touchy subject and no one really wants to report in the media how this man got into the country, or why. No matter how you want to spin this, 10 children's lives have been forever changed; one more than the others.

Or perhaps we should commend this "immigrant" for bringoing to light the danger of this bus stop location. As long as the bus stop has been at this location, there has not even been a near miss. It took an "immigrant" to bring this to the attention of the public.

The Washington Post is the biggest liberal rag. Code word: recent immigrant. I'm surprised they didn't say, migrate