In a tragic turn of events, a charter bus transporting high school students was involved in a severe collision with a semi-truck on an Ohio highway on Tuesday morning. The catastrophic accident resulted in the death of six individuals and left 18 injured, according to officials.
The collision, which occurred approximately 26 miles east of Columbus on Interstate 70 in Licking County, involved five vehicles, including a Pioneer Trails charter bus from the Tuscarawas Valley Local School District in eastern Ohio, according to Ohio State Highway Patrol. The charter bus was transporting students and chaperones to a conference, according to The Associated Press.
A video recorded at the scene of the crash shows emergency crews rescuing survivors from the crash while multiple vehicles were engulfed in flames.
Tragically, three passengers on the bus were pronounced dead at the scene, as reported by the Ohio State Highway Patrol on Tuesday night. The deceased passengers were identified as John W. Mosely, age 18, Jeffery D. Worrell, age 18, both from Mineral City, and Katelyn N. Owens, age 15, from Mineral City.
“This is our worst nightmare, when we have a bus full of children involved in a crash,” Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, said during a press briefing at the crash site. “Prayers go out to the families, everyone who was on the bus.”
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In addition to the fatalities on the bus, the highway patrol noted that all three occupants of one of the other passenger vehicles involved were also declared dead at the scene. The other three fatalities included Dave Kennat, age 56, from Navarre; Kristy Gaynor, age 39, from Zoar; and Shannon Wigfield, age 45, from Bolivar.
In the aftermath of the accident, 15 students and the bus driver were taken to local hospitals for treatment, while other students were escorted to a reunification site, according to the Ohio State Highway Patrol. The drivers of the commercial vehicles involved received varied degrees of medical attention, with one treated at the scene and the other hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries.
The charter bus was heading to an Ohio School Boards Association conference in Columbus, which was later canceled in light of the tragedy, according to The Associated Press.
This news article was partially created with the assistance of artificial intelligence and edited and fact-checked by a human editor.
