12 people injured when a school bus carrying Calhan middle school students overturns while returning from a basketball game.
EL PASO COUNTY, COLO. -- Les Dawson, a 65-year-old bus driver, has been charged with careless driving causing injury after a rollover crash of a school bus occurred around 9:30 p.m. Tuesday on Highway 24, causing 11 students and one adult to be taken to the hospital.
Troopers said the bus, carrying 24 Calhan Middle School students and five adults, was returning from a basketball game at the Vanguard School in Colorado Springs when the driver lost control on an icy road, rolling off the roadway into an embankment about five miles east of Peyton.
"The school bus then had to tap its brakes, which caused it to loose control on the ice," Colorado State patrol Capt. Chuck Cargin said. "It spun around counterclockwise 360 degrees, went off the left side of the road, rolled one quarter time, coming to rest on its right side."
One adult man was transported to a Colorado Springs hospital by helicopter, while 11 others were taken by ambulance to area hospitals. Troopers said it is unclear at this time the age or gender of those that were taken to the hospital, describing their injuries as mild to moderate.
Dawson was uninjured.
"I got a report, and it didn't look like any of them were critical or really serious," Cargin said.
Linda Miller, the Superintendent of Calhan schools, was at the game and rushed to the scene to check on the seventh and eighth graders.
"They are scared," Miller said. "It was a pretty significant event for them to go through."
Miller said Highway 24 didn't get really bad until she got east of Peyton.
"I was there at Vanguard and saw the game and drove home," Miller said. "I live east of Calhan. As you saw when you came out here, it wasn't anything until we got here."
State troopers said it's a reminder that road conditions can change in an instant this time of year.
"Just another warning for our first winter storm, it can be warm one minute, and you round a curve a different direction, and it's all iced up," Cargin said.
Highway 24 was temporarily closed while emergency crews were on scene. The cause of the crash remains under investigation.
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