Metro

Six students hurt in Brooklyn school bus crash

A school bus and a taxi collided in Brooklyn Monday afternoon sending nine people to the hospital, including six special needs students, authorities said.

The bus was near the intersection of Halsey Street and Marcy Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant just after 3:30 p.m. when it struck a taxi and was and knocked onto its side, witnesses said.

John Denmark, 40, said, “It all happened in a flash. I saw the green cab smash right into the yellow school bus. The boom was so loud it hurt my ears.”

Denmark, a real estate agent, raced to the overturned bus and rescued the injured children from the smoking vehicle with the help of other Good Samaritans.

“My first instinct was to rush over to the bus because I assumed it was full of kids. I was able to get the door open and start pulling kids out of the side door,” Denmark said.

“The kids were hysterical, they were screaming,” Denmark added. “I was scared for my life too because I didn’t know if the bus was going to explode or not.”

A Department of Education spokesperson said the bus was carrying students from two local schools.Three adults and six children were taken to Woodhull Hospital, eight with minor injuries and one with serious but non-life threatening injuries, authorities said.

Witnesses offered differing accounts about what led to the smash-up.

David Blaize, 53, said, “The cab was going way too fast. How do you hit a bus and make it flip over if you’re going the speed limit?”

Hamdi Igheim, 36, a worker at Halsey Supermarket & Deli, said the taxi had the light as it headed westbound on Halsey Street.

“The light had just turned green and [the cabbie] was inching his way out into the intersection. I saw the bus coming and it looked like he was trying to beat the light,” Igheim said.

“It was yellow and about to turn red. [The bus driver] was going way too fast” as he sped northbound on Marcy Avenue, Igheim said. “He slammed right into the cab. The cabbie never saw it coming.”
Surveillance video from the deli seems to corroborate Igheim’s account.

“Why would a bus driver with a school bus full of children try to beat a light? What’s the rush?” Igheim asked.

The cause of the crash is still under investigation, according to police.