A Griffith man
driving for Superior Ambulance Service on a suspended license hit a
Valparaiso Community School bus in Union Township on Tuesday, leaving 15
injured, most of them fifth-graders, the Porter County Sheriff’s Police
said.
PCSP Sgt. Larry
LaFlower told the Chesterton Tribune that the accident happened at
8:30 a.m. at the intersection of Ind. 130 and C.R. 625W.
The Superior
Ambulance Service driver, identified as Charles Fields, 23, was southbound
on C.R. 625W when he proceeded from the stop sign at Ind. 130 and struck the
side of the school bus, which was westbound on Ind. 130 and en route for the
Challenger Learning Center at Purdue University Calumet in Hammond, LaFlower
said.
A witness advised
police that the ambulance’s emergency lights and sirens were not activated
at the time of the crash, LaFlower added.
Twelve of the 59
students on the bus--all of them Memorial Elementary School
fifth-graders--sustained minor injuries, LaFlower said. Six of them were
treated at the scene; the other six were treated at Porter hospital--five at
the Portage campus, one at the main facility in Liberty Township--and later
released.
Also injured in the
crash, LaFlower said: two Superior Ambulance Service employees and a patient
whom they were transporting. LaFlower had no information on the status of
those three, who were taken to area hospitals.
Fields was issued a
citation for driving while suspended-infraction and for failure to yield
right of way, LaFlower said.