Two dead after Florida school bus rolls over in multi-vehicle crash in Winter Haven

Mixed · 2A school bus carrying students to Winter Haven High School overturned in a multi-vehicle crash in Winter Haven, central Florida, on Monday morning, killing two people and injuring several others, according to authorities. 1 2 Mixed · 2The dead were a 10th-grade girl who was on the bus and the person in a Jeep involved in the crash, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said. 1 3 Mixed · 2The crash was reported at about 6:15 a.m. 1 3

Mixed · 2The bus carried 39 people: 37 high school students, the driver and the driver's 9-year-old daughter. 1 3 Mixed · 2Judd said that, for unknown reasons, a white Chevy Malibu travelling in the opposite direction crossed the centre line and struck the bus near its rear tire; a preliminary review of video showed the bus had been in its own lane. 1 3 Mixed · 2The impact tore a tyre off the bus and drove it head-on into an oncoming Jeep, which caught fire; the bus came to rest upside down in a roadside ditch. 2 4

Left · 1Officials said four vehicles were affected in total. 1 Mixed · 2Judd said five to seven trauma alerts were issued and people were taken to hospital by helicopter, ambulance and private vehicle; one person remained in critical condition early Monday. 1 3 Left · 1Judd called it "the most horrific bus tragedy we've had in decades, as far back as I can remember." 4

Mixed · 2Polk County Public Schools Superintendent Frederick Heid said students drill on evacuating a bus and that the event "could have been far worse"; school board chairman Justin Sharpless asked the community to support the family of the girl who died. 4 2 Left · 1Traffic homicide investigators are at the scene, all information is preliminary, and Judd said more details would likely come at another press conference on Tuesday. 1 Centre · 1On September 3, a separate Polk County school bus crashed in Lakeland with no students on board; one person had non-life-threatening injuries. 2