I heard about this, and when I looked at the pictures, the first thing I saw was how the bus was separated from the chassis. From everything I know about school bus extrication, that shouldn't have happened (I know, duh); it must have been a huge impact from the dump truck to do that.
Current thinking the school bus driver tried to make a U turn on Rt 80. Having driven that road many times, I can only hope that their thinking is incorrect, as that would be an extremely dangerous maneuver to make in a car: I can't imagine doing that in a bus.
One thing I'd like to highlight:
"A lot of people were screaming and hanging from their seat belts," he said.
There is no federal requirement for seat belts on full-sized school buses, but six states including New Jersey require them.
many of us grew up with no seatbelts on school buses, but this is likely a great example of how they do save lives.
Jury's still out if it was "successful" or not.
Lets be honest here: This was an MCI, with 45 injuries, with multiple fatalities, multiple critical, multiple ejections, and a lot of injured kids. It would tax almost every system. While I'm sure there will be some "lesson's learned." which can be found after every major incident, it sounds like they did a pretty good job during an incredibly chaotic scene.
