June 12 -- Five elementary schoolchildren suffered minor injuries when their mini school bus driver had a medical emergency and crashed into a house Tuesday morning in North Amityville, police said.
The driver was taken to Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center in West Islip, Suffolk County police said. Her condition was not known. An assistant was also injured, the bus company said.
The five children onboard, students from the Amityville school district, were all taken to the same hospital for evaluation and treatment of minor injuries, police and officials said.
The bus pushed two parked vehicles forward before slamming into the house about 7:45 a.m., shaking the structure and jolting the five residents inside, most of whom were sleeping at the time, police and residents said.
“All I heard was the boom,” said Gabriella Collado, 27, a resident of the house on County Line Road at the intersection with Ritter Avenue. “It hit us so hard that everything got moved.”
Her mother, Eugenia Collado, 61, rents the house. She said she was in the living room at the time of the crash, which threw her across the room.
Eugenia Collado was crying outside the home Tuesday morning with bits of drywall throughout her hair and a scrape on her eyebrow. She said she had pain in her foot and back. Minutes later, she got into an ambulance to be taken to Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center. The mother was the only resident evaluated, Gabriella Collado said.
“Thank God we’re all alive,” Gabriella Collado said.
The bus was headed to the Western Suffolk BOCES James E. Allen Elementary School in Dix Hills, said Amityville superintendent Mary Kelly. Parents have been notified, she said.
“The safety of our students is our top priority,” Kelly said in a statement.
Educational Bus Transportation Inc. owns the bus, which is not a district bus, Kelly said. The Copiague company confirmed that it was one of their buses.
“The driver, who suffered an unforeseen medical incident, was in full compliance with all state laws and company regulations regarding physical examinations and her last road observation was conducted in February,” Educational Bus spokeswoman Katherine Heaviside said in a statement.
The statement did not identify the driver or provide information on her condition, but it did say a “driver assistant” had minor injuries.
“The safety of our passengers is our paramount concern,” Heaviside said.
Police had closed off Ritter Avenue and County Line Road in the area Tuesday morning. Emergency vehicles and neighbors crowded around the scene.
The five people in the home at the time of the crash were Eugenia Collado and her three children, Gabriella Collado, Jesus Collado, 29, and Odris Collado, 32; and Gabriella Collado’s son Jeremiah, 4. They have lived there for almost two years.
“We were all sleeping,” Odris Collado said.
Gabriella Collado, whose bedroom is in the front of the house next to the living room, said she was also pushed across the room in the crash. “All I did was scream, grab my son, and cry,” she said.
She said that by the time she woke up, the crash had already happened.
“When we came out, she was still in the bus and the children were on the ground,” she said of the bus driver.
With William Murphy.
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