Baton Rouge, LA : 28 Baton Rouge Lee High students injured after buses crash on I-10 near LaPlace on Friday morning, March 31, 2017

Twenty-eight Baton Rouge high school students were taken to hospitals with minor or moderate injuries Friday morning after a pair of charter buses carrying them to New Orleans for a museum visit and an NBA game were involved in a crash on Interstate 10 near LaPlace, officials said.

None of the students from Lee High School was critically hurt, Acadian Ambulance operations manager Justin Cox and State Police spokeswoman Melissa Matey said.

“Everybody is walking away (with) cuts, neck injuries, headaches,” Lee High Principal Nan McCann said Friday morning. “ 'Walking wounded' is what they call it.”

Later in the day, though, McCann said she learned that at least one student ended up in a wheelchair after being examined at the hospital.

By early afternoon, all but four of the 28 students had been discharged from the hospital, and McCann said the rest were expected to be released later in the day.

According to Matey, two charter buses carrying a total of 108 Lee High students ages 17 to 18 were heading eastbound on I-10 near mile marker 209 when the accident occurred.

One bus was slowing for traffic when it was struck from behind by the other bus, Matey said. Troopers intend to cite the driver of the trailing bus, 59-year-old Jewell Mendes of Baton Rouge, for careless operation of a motor vehicle, she said.

A third bus, also carrying students from Lee High, was not involved in the wreck.

McCann said the students left Lee High for New Orleans about 8 a.m., and she was alerted to the wreck about 9 a.m.

Students reporting injuries from the collision were taken to hospitals in Gonzales, Hammond, Kenner, LaPlace, Lutcher and Metairie. The most, eight, were directed to Ochsner’s facility in Kenner.

McCann said the adults on board the buses appeared to be OK. “We got some knots and bruises on the teachers, but no one reported to the emergency room,” she said.

Some of the teachers followed students to the hospitals to make sure they were OK, and the parents of the injured students were all notified, she said.

Assistant Principal Cindy Perret was in the undamaged bus, which was some distance behind the other two.

The 150 10th- and 11th-graders wee heading to New Orleans to tour the National World War II Museum and take in a Pelicans game, returning late Friday night. The trip also had a third planned stop: Mardi Gras World.

They got to none of them.

Perret said she didn’t realize anything was amiss until she got a call from a teacher in one of the damaged buses. When her bus finally stopped due to the congestion, Perret said she got out and walked through the traffic to the crash scene.

She said she saw a student with a gash on the forehead and knew the situation was serious. Many students were on their phones talking to their parents.

Perret said in some cases she commandeered the phones to update the parents. Information at that point was still sketchy, especially what hospitals the students would be transported to.

“We couldn’t give them much,” she said, “because we didn’t know where (the students) were going.”

The St. John the Baptist Parish school system had agreed to pick up the uninjured students, but as it turned out, the help was unnecessary and the charter buses drove on their own to the Civic Center in LaPlace, Perret said.

Perret said the people at the Civic Center were good hosts, and St. John Parish President Natalie Robottom stopped by for a visit.

“They gave them water and chips and let them chill down,” Perret said of those at the Civic Center.

Before long, three East Baton Rouge Parish school buses arrived and took the students back to the Lee High campus in time for the final bell and buses home.

The buses carrying the students belonged to a Zachary company called Calvin B. Tours, owned by Calvin Brown.

“I have never had this happen ... never had an accident on a field trip,” said McCann, a veteran educator and school administrator.

The trip to New Orleans is part of an annual tradition for Lee High. Senior Claire Samaha, Lee’s student of the year, was supposed to get to throw up the first ball at the Pelicans game, McCann said.

I-10 East was blocked at U.S. 51 immediately following the accident, but traffic had cleared by about 11:40 a.m.

Friday's accident occurred near the scene of another crash involving a charter bus in late August. That wreck was much more severe, injuring nearly 40 people and killing three, including a high-ranking St. John Parish firefighter.

Source :
28 Baton Rouge Lee High students injured after buses crash on I-10 near LaPlace