A 7-year-old Maryland girl remains in critical condition after being struck by a truck while getting off her school bus this week, the latest in a recent rash of accidents involving children at bus stops.
Skyla Shirriel was struck by a pickup truck Tuesday while crossing the street in Bryantown, Maryland, about an hour’s drive southeast of Washington, D.C.
Although the bus had activated its flashing red lights and stop sign, a 35-year-old woman driving a Ford F-250 hit the girl as she was trying to get to her home across the street, the Charles County Sheriff’s Office said in a press release.
Skyla was immediately flown to Children’s National Hospital in Washington with critical injuries, the release said.
“She was late last night put in a medically induced coma,” family friend Mike Wathen told CNN affiliate WJLA on Wednesday.
One of many recent bus-stop accidents
In most states, drivers are required to stop and wait for a stopped school bus flashing its lights with a raised stop arm.
But they often don’t. The Maryland State Department of Education conducted a survey that found 3,812 bus-stop violations — such as motorists passing stopped buses — on one single day last spring.
A similar survey by the National Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services, published in August, found bus drivers reported that nearly 84,000 vehicles passed their buses illegally during the 2017-2018 school year.
The latest accident in Maryland is just one of many in recent weeks. In the last month there have been at least five other reports of children being killed or injured when they were struck by vehicles while waiting for their school bus, getting off the bus or boarding the bus.
- In rural Indiana, three siblings were killed as they were crossing the street to catch their bus.
- In Tampa, Florida, five students were rushed to the hospital after a car hit them at a bus stop.
- In Tallahassee, Florida, a five-year-old boy was injured while he was trying to board a bus.
- In Mississippi, a 9-year-old was killed as he crossed the road to board a bus.
- In Pennsylvania, a 7-year-old boy was found dead on the side of the road near his home after he was run over by a vehicle.
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SOURCE: CNN – Andrea Diaz
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