ALAMANCE COUNTY, N.C. — Five students are still being treated at UNC Hospital in Chapel Hill after a school bus crash early Thursday morning.
“It was like a horror movie,” Brad Buntin said.
School bus 342 crashed into a business off Highway 87 in Graham, sending several B. Everett Jordan Elementary students to the hospital.
“I ran back to the back, opened up the emergency exit door and there’s this kid…He was in a blue hoodie, bleeding like crazy, and all you could hear was the kids just screaming,” Buntin said.
Buntin is a former volunteer firefighter. He was driving in the area when the crash happened.
“I could see a white flashing strobe light on the back of the bus, and it looked like he was turning around, but it was so dark. I couldn’t really, actually see the bus,” Buntin said.
It was at that moment that the bus crashed off the highway, hitting the Lloyd Septic building. No one was inside the building.
“It sounded like a bomb. It was very, very loud, and it kind of startled me,” Angela Lloyd said. She owns the building that was hit and lives next door. She’s also Buntin’s aunt.
The sound sent her and others running toward the crash.
“I just sat down in the middle of the tarp with the kids, and just tried to love on them, calm them, and just be present for them, because it was chaos,” Lloyd said.
Eighteen students were on board. Seven students were taken to the hospital. Troopers said they’re all going to be OK.
“Honestly, I prayed as I ran over here that the children wouldn’t be harmed,” Lloyd said.
She said she was just glad it wasn’t worse.
“Thankfully, buildings can be fixed and repaired, and thankfully, no one was severely, severely injured,” she said.
The driver of the bus, Ronald Farrow, had minor injuries but is doing OK. Highway Patrol charged him with failure to maintain lane control.
The district said he’s been a bus driver with ABSS since 2010.
Bus drivers go through certification every three years.
The cause of the crash remains under investigation.