A school bus taking students to school Wednesday morning hit a speed bump hard enough to buck some students from their seats, spurring Durango School District 9-R to call for paramedics.
At about 7:45 a.m., a school bus driver traveling from Riverview Elementary School to Miller Middle School on Riverview Drive went over a large speed bump “too quickly” causing some students to be jolted from their seats, according to a notification sent to families from Durango School District.
“Upon arrival at Miller Middle School, student riders were contacted by paramedics as a precaution,” the notification said. “One family took their child to Mercy Regional Medical Center for follow-up care. The rest of the students did not require immediate medical attention. They returned to school to begin a normal school day.”
There were 25 students on the bus from Miller Middle, Juniper Elementary, Mountain Middle, Durango High and Animas High schools, according to the district.
“District officials reviewed the video footage from the interior of the bus at 10:15 a.m., and it appears that the jolt was minor,” the notification said. “No students appear to have hit the floor or the ceiling of the bus.”
Durango Fire Protection District was paged for an EMS response after the bus arrived at Miller Middle School.
“The page was for a bus that had students on it claiming injuries from hitting a large bump in the road,” said Michael Krupa, deputy chief of the fire district.
As part of its standard response, Durango Fire sent one engine, one medic unit, one EMS supervisor and a battalion chief, Krupa said, just because of the number of students that were potentially on the bus, to start doing assessments and figure out what happened.
“The information I have is that six of them were complaining of some sort of minor pain,” Krupa said. “We evaluated everybody on scene. We transported zero people. And the one that went to the hospital was with a parent, and that was their choice. But no ambulance transports.”
Krupa added that there were no remarkable injuries noted, and that all minors were released with parent-consent.
The notification sent to parents by the district also stated that the district’s transportation department took “swift corrective action with the driver.”
The Durango Police Department did not issue any citations.
Asked by The Durango Herald what action was taken with the driver, Karla Sluis, spokeswoman for the district responded via email and said “This is an internal matter that cannot be discussed publicly.”
She declined to comment, citing HIPPA laws, when asked about the child taken by their parent(s) to Mercy Hospital.
gjaros@durangoherald.com
