School Bus With Special Needs Students Gets Trapped In Sinkhole In The Bronx
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A school bus transporting special needs children got stuck in a sinkhole in the Bronx late Thursday afternoon.
As CBS2's Jessica Schneider reported, the bus was traveling down the street down Creston Avenue toward East Burnside Avenue, in the Tremont section of the Bronx around 3 p.m.
The bus was taking special needs students to camp, officials said.
The bus went over what was then a small pothole, and ended up plummeting into what became an enormous sinkhole.
The ground opened underneath the bus to something that was about 10 feet long and 6 feet wide.
Several special needs students were on board when the incident happened. They all got off the bus safely and none were injured.
But the students' parents rushed out to the scene and were startled by what they saw. Many were concerned.
"Very, very scary. The bus driver told me she almost fainted," parent Wale Woade said.
The scene unfolded without warning. Department of Environmental Protection officials said nothing had been reported as wrong with the stretch of Creston Avenue where the accident happened.
City crews finally pulled the bus out of the sinkhole early Thursday evening. Traffic on Creston Avenue was still blocked off near the scene.
Crews were tearing up the street on Thursday night, and checking the water main directly below to see if any leak may have triggered the road collapse.
"There is a water main under there and part of our excavation is to determine what is going on under there. Whether or not there's a leak, so that's why we're excavating to figure out the source of the problem," said Eric Landau, associate commissioner the DEP.
The school bus operator was examined by paramedics and was reportedly doing fine late Thursday, CBS2's Schneider reported.
