Nice Bus Crash in Hempstead! There But For the Grace of God...

     You may have heard about Nice Bus' big crash on Fulton avenue. It was mentioned this morning on NBC among other networks.

       "Police say a 6-year-old boy is dead and several others were injured after a Nassau bus slammed into a home in Hempstead last night."

       "According to police, the Nassau Inter-County Express (NICE) bus was traveling westbound on Fulton Avenue, swerved to avoid a pedestrian and hit a home at 505 Fulton Ave. at around 9:30 p.m.

       "The bus struck the pedestrian before crashing into the house, pinning the young boy, police say. The pedestrian is expected to be OK."

       "According to police, the 6-year-old boy who was killed and his 7-year-old brother were sleeping in a front bedroom. The 7-year-old suffered minor injuries."

       "Numerous fire departments responded to the scene and a triage center was set up in a Burger King parking lot to handle other injuries from the crash.

      "Officials say a total of 20 people were on the bus, 11 of them were injured."

      http://www.newsday.com/6-year-old-killed-after-nice-bus-crashes-into-hempstead-home-1.4267713

     Believe it or not, your friendly blog writer was on that bus on my way back from work last night.. I wasn't hurt though others on the bus weren't so lucky and a 6 year old kid-in the house the bus hit-aren't so lucky.

      While I'm not a religious guy, I guess that phrase "There but for the Grace of God go I" fits pretty good. My Mother is very religious and insists that I'm all right because of all the praying she does for me.

     What about the six year old kid's Mother: how do we know she didn't pray just as much for him?

      It's interesting the things you remember. I didn't see what precipitated the crash. All I saw was the driver swerve to avoid hitting something-turns out he was trying to avoid hitting a pedestrian-and ended up someones lawn.

      At that moment I can see we're about to hit the house and I'm thinking to myself that I hope I don't get hurt in the impact. Other people got thrown and tossed around.

       As the story above said, there were 20 on the bus 11 were injured. These numbers are fluid. They are probably counting those injured by who took up the offer of the cops and EMT drivers to go to the emergency room. Some may not have been too badly hurt and it seems whatever injuries there were are likely minor.

       There were also probably more than 20 on the bus-many just left. I thought of that but I wanted to give a statement-just in case I need anything in the future they have a record of me being there.

        When I had gotten the bus over in Levitown-on Hempstead Tpke by Hicksville Rd-I had to rush there to catch the 9:07 N72. A woman was paying her change as I walked up to the bus. Then he acted like he was going to leave so I knocked. He let me in but was trying to give me a hard time about making him miss the light.

         I've gotten his bus a few times-when I can catch the 9:07. He usually seems to be a pretty aggressive driver, often slamming on the breaks real hard and complaining about someone driving crazy. When we got out of the bus after the crash some people told me that he usually drives crazy.

        On the other hand, there was a guy who claimed he saw the whole thing and that the bus driver was not to blame, that the pedestrian came out of nowhere "like a ghost." He was very definitive-though I didn't see it myself.

         The story put out by the police so far is that it was just a tragic accident and that the driver was driving at uniform speed.

           I don't know about that-he seemed like he was driving a little faster than that-but who knows.

           While no charges have been filed yet-the key word is yet. The family whose house got smashed into and whose son is dead likely will want to delve more deeply into what happened.