YORK, NH : Driver who crashed Kittery van with children aboard has history of seizures on Wednesday, 15th August 2018

The driver of a Kittery recreation department shuttle bus that crashed in New Hampshire last week with 11 children on board has a history of epilepsy and had experienced grand mal seizures in the past, court records show.

The diagnosis could explain the unspecified medical emergency that New Hampshire State Police say John E. Guy, 21, of Kittery, suffered immediately before he ran off the road while driving the 2010 GMC Savana.

But still unexplained is why the town of Kittery’s background check of Guy did not turn up information about his checkered driving record – including driving to endanger convictions – and his minor criminal history, and it remains unclear why he was hired by the town and allowed to drive the van.

Guy was hired as a counselor at a town-run summer camp known as the SAFE Summer program, and was driving a van filled with 11 children and one other adult to a New Hampshire water park when he crashed Friday morning in the town of Greenland.

Some of the children were injured, and were treated and released at nearby hospitals. One child with serious injuries was flown to Boston Children’s Hospital, but everyone involved in the wreck had been released from the hospital as of Sunday, Kittery officials said. The passengers have not been publicly identified.

The town said Monday that criminal history and driving record checks are standard in the hiring process, and Town Manager Kendra Amaral said in a statement released Tuesday that the town employs an online service to complete the checks. The unnamed third-party company cross-references a national criminal database, a terrorist watch list, the sex offender registry, and a county criminal court search – but did not include a driver history.

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