This Mason County Schools bus was stopped along U.S. 35 loading passengers with a stopped semi-truck (pictured here) waiting behind it. While the truck was waiting, another semi-truck (not pictured here) struck the stationary semi-truck and caused this chain reaction Tuesday morning in Southside.
POINT PLEASANT, W.Va. — The response to Tuesday’s accident between a school bus and two semi trucks was a result of preparing for the worst-case scenario.
According to reports, a school bus was stopped to pick up children around 7:30 a.m.Tuesday with another semi-truck stopped behind it near Cornstalk Road — the location where the U.S. 35 goes from four lane to two for 14 miles. While this was happening, a second semi-truck was unable to stop and strucked the stopped semi-truck, pushing it into the rear of the school bus with children on it.
First responders, emergency management, hospitals and law enforcement all train and plan for scenarios like the one that played out on U.S. 35. The result was the best possible outcome.
“This was a terrible situation to respond to, but at the same time, the outcome was the best it could’ve been, too,” Jeremy Bryant, Point Pleasant fire chief, said.
A much more dire outcome dominated much of the discussion Tuesday as word began to spread about the accident on one of Mason County’s most dangerous and notorious roads.
Karen Jones, operations chief for Mason County EMS, said the response went “amazingly well.”
Jones said EMS had eight trucks on the scene with mutual aid from Putnam County as well as Cabell County, the latter of which was assisting on another accident with injuries on Jerry’s Run Road.
“We practice this, but today we had to perform and we performed the way we practiced. It was great,” Jones said. “Every person working EMS has to have MCI (Mass Casualty Incident) training before they can run on an ambulance. The scenarios we covered are what we did (Tuesday).”
This response includes “responding hot” to every scene because, as Jones pointed out, you never know for sure what’s happening at a scene until you get there. Jones said the initial call that came into Mason County 911 was that of an accident involving a school bus with no students and a car. This was not the case once responders arrived and re-assessed the scene.
Jones said there were 10 people transported from the scene, with one going to a Charleston-area hospital because, in terms of the traffic, it was easier to get them there with the others being dispersed between Pleasant Valley Hospital and Holzer Medical Center…
