Scary ride for students after school bus lands in Bolton ravine

It was a frightening trip to school for some Bolton area students after their bus hit a bridge and ended up in a ravine.

Police were called to King Street East and Humber Lea Road near the Humber River bridge around 8:15 a.m. on Friday.

OPP Const. Tamara Schubert said along with the driver, 17 high school students from Humberview Secondary School were on the bus at the time of the crash.

Paramedics say one person was taken to hospital as a precaution. The person’s age and gender are not yet known.

A representative from the Peel District School Board confirmed that all staff and students were safe.

Schubert said the bus was travelling north on Humber Lea when for an unknown it started to descend in a southbound direction. The bus then descended into the river on the west side, she added.

One of the student’s mothers said the bus was trying to make its way up a steep hill when it stalled near the top and started to roll backwards, towards the bridge over the Humber River. The bus struck the side of the bridge and ended up in a ditch near the river.

“The rear of the bus was hanging over the river,” Schubert said. The OPP later said the tail end of the bus hit the water.

The bus hit a Jeep and a Ford during the crash. According to Schubert, no one inside was injured.

“We rolled down the hill and we avoided one truck, a pickup truck. We just dinged a Jeep and the bus hit a red Ford,” a 14-year-old student who was on the bus said.

The teen said he and his friend told everyone to get off the bus through the emergency exit window.

“Everybody was more or less in shock, but no one was freaking out,” another student said. She said one of the other drivers involved in the crash ran down and helped to get the students off the bus.

After getting off the bus and seeing how close they were to the water, she said “that was scary for me … a lot of kids were crying.”

The students were transported onto another bus and taken to school.

Heavy tow trucks managed to pull the bus out from the ravine. It is not yet known why the bus started to roll backwards, but the bus will be towed to Brampton for inspection.

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