HEBRON, Maine — Eight Oxford Hills School District middle and high school students are being treated in the Stephens Memorial Hospital in Norway for back, neck injuries and shock following a head on collision between a car and school bus Tuesday afternoon on Route 119.
The driver of the car was Brandon Buffington, 19, of Paris, according to Oxford County Sheriff’s Department Lt. Brian Landis. He is being treated in Central Maine Medical Center for possible broken legs and a broken arm, according to his grandfather Paris Deputy Fire Chief Willie Buffington.
According to police, 18 students were on the bus when Buffington’s 1999 Audi A4 veered across the roadway and smashed directly into the front of the bus.
Landis said the students’ ages ranged from about 12 to 16 years and live in Hebron, Buckfield and Oxford. Bus driver Stephanie Rowe of Paris was not injured, he said.
Buffington, a student at an Auburn vocational training center, was driving westbound on Route 119 near the Hebron/Paris town line shortly before 2:30 p.m. when he veered into the bus. The impact apparently sent the car in a spin, where it landed off the road headed eastbound.
“It was my grandson,” said Willie Buffington.
The deputy chief said he arrived at the scene in a squad truck not knowing his grandson was involved. He jumped out of the truck right behind the bus, grabbed a generator and ran to the side of the bus where he saw the back end of his grandson’s car.
Buffington said his grandson, who was taken by ambulance to the playing fields at Hebron Academy where he was transported by LifeFlight to Central Maine Medical Center, appears to have suffered broken bones in the crash.
“He’s young and strong. He’ll be able to recover with time,” he said.
A witness to the accident who was driving westbound directly behind Brandon Buffington told the Sun Journal he saw the Audi swerve in front of the bus.
“He just swerved in front of the bus and that was it,” said Isiah Carro, 23, of Paris, who was also on his way home from Auburn.
“It may have been an overcorrection. The car did a very quick jerk,” said Carro, who estimated the cars were driving between 30 and 45 miles per hour. The speed limit on the state highway is 45 miles per hour, according to Oxford County Sheriff Wayne Gallant.
Carro said he stopped his car, put the brake on and ran over to help the driver.
“I didn’t know what I was going to see. I heard a moaning. I tried to rip the door open but his legs were under the steering wheel. He tried to pull himself out,” said Carro, who had to wait for firefighters to arrive with the Jaws of Life to pull the roof off the car.
The impact of the accident blew the sneakers off his grandson, said Willie Buffington.
The students who were not taken to the hospital were placed in another bus and taken away from the accident scene. SAD 17 Transportation Director David Fontaine was on the scene to help the students make that transfer.
Superintendent Rick Colpitts said none of the student injuries were believed to be life threatening.
Police on the scene closed a portion of the road to allow for medical response and a reconstruction team that were still at the site at 5 p.m. The team includes a state police commercial unit as well as two state troopers and sheriff’s deputies.
The cause of the accident remains under investigation.
See more from the Sun Journal at sunjournal.com.
Glad to see that no lives were lost. This could have been worse-much worse. Accidents involving a bus often ignite the argument that students should wear seat belts on school buses. Some states mandate them and others don’t. It’s an interesting argument on both sides.
As a bus driver, I pick up any where from 40-45 kids a run. If kids were to wear seatbelts, & I as the driver am responsible to make sure they are buckled before I take off, I would have to add an extra 1/2 hour to run. That would mean picking up my 1st stop at 6am. Lets face it, 1/2 to 3/4’s would probably unbuckle 1st chance they can. Why do I have to wear one & my pre-k’s I HONESTLY can’t answer that other than its a STATE law. I do know that busses today are made much different than when I rode.
As 99.99999% of drivers, the kiddos safety is MY first concern. I would love to see how such states mandate seat belt use. AND if something happens and child is NOT in seatbelt WHO is responsible. I’m sure ALL school districts have RULES, but lets face it many parents say……..NOT MY CHILD
I often wondered about why school buses don’t have seat belts on them. I asked my mother one day and she said it’s because if there was an accident or an emergency then it would be very hard for one bus driver to un buckle that many children if they were unable to do it themselves. In the case of fire or being submerged in water time would be very limited, and any malfunctioning seat belt or student who was unable because of injury would probably not be released in time to escape. The risk outweighs the benefit in this case so instead they design the buses themselves to be able to handle the impact of an accident better than most vehicles. I am not positive that she is right with this reason, but it makes a lot of sense to me.
I never considered that possibility. Excellent point!
While you make interesting points , the purpose of seatbelts are to keep kids in seats and not tumbling around the bus like clothes in a dryer…Ever see a bus roll over ???Google it and check it out..Buses use Diesel now and the risk of fire is very remote…As it going into a lake…Going off the road and rolling over on snow covered roads is MUCH more likely..
Only a very small amount of states require them, the number is less than ten.
School buses are designed to be compartmentalized. Each seat is one compartment. Kids in the compartments are as safe as if they were belted. That is why seat belts are not required in addition to all the other reasons mentioned by other posters. The seats in the bus are designed to give some in an impact and they are fully and deeply padded front and back. The backs are high in order to facilitate the compartmentalization. Buses also sit higher off the ground than other vehicles so that the damage is to the bus and not to the occupants. There is no safer vehicle on the road. Thank God all involved are alive and can recover.
In airplane crashes the first priority is to find the black box. The first priority in this case should be to find the cell phone. Thank God no one was killed.
quote: the driver of the car swerved off the side of the road and overcorrected before slamming head-on into the bus.
We’ve all got to put away electronic devices……ipods, cellphones, even radios and pay attention to driving. This is dry daytime driving. Kids are being dropped off. Maybe it was a medical event for the car driver and not the person’s fault but likely not.
Wishing every injured person a complete and speedy recovery!
I hope everyone recovers quickly. Very scary incident.
Seriously people????? You instantly say cell phone or ipod. Ever heard of mechanical failure??? Maybe something happened to the car and he couldnt control it. Wait for the evidence before you blame the cell phone for the cause!!!!!
That’s a lot of unnecessary punctuation.
“He’s young and strong. He’ll be able to recover with time,” he said. I wonder where the concern is for the kids who were injured by his grandson?
Oh, come on!
That was one sentence of a conversation and you have no idea what else Willie said or what his concerns were. Are you just trying to start crap or do you have nothing better to do than to judge everyone to make you feel better about yourself?
Is he supposed to comment on what was NOT said?
ya i noticed that too – it was all about him, nothing about the kids on the bus. I am betting he was texting or talking on a cell phone. Something made him lose concentration on what he was doing that was MORE important then a call – text – changing the radio
Creepy Charlie Summers put a stop to texting while driving, so it couldn’t be texting.
You know just as well as any other posters in this comment section that just because there is a law against texting while driving, the likelihood that ALL young adults are never texting any more is slim to none…. Just like when they passed the laws for OUI that stopped everyone from drinking and driving… or the seatbelt law now means everyone wears their seatbelts all the time. Unfortunately, based on experience and based on the age of the driver (young adult), my bet is on some sort of electronic device being some how involved in this crash….
I’m not getting your point. What exactly are you trying to say?
i’m unwilling to call dhs on this one because of the number of children who should be forcibly removed from the home for not wearing the seatbelt. perhaps someone else should..
if the children are under 16 i recommend DHS forcibly remove them from their homes under armed guard and taken to the nearest foster home. The driver of the vehicle should not be charged, however his car will be destroyed per state request.
Where did this statement come from? DHS?? This article is about children on a school bus, they were not in a private vehicle. DHS has so much on their plate with abused children that I doubt this would be high priority on their ever growing abuse case lists. I agree that every child be in a safety car seat or belted in if they are too big for a car seat but to be forcibly removed from their home because of not wearing a belt – I can’t agree.
sarcasm
I wasn Route 119 Monday . I was doing 50-55 MPH and when there was any kind of straight stretch, I was being passed like I was doing 25-30 MPH. The road is narrow, with no paved shoulders, so just the slightest driver error can cause major problems.
He is a 19 yr. old kid – who is to say that he was using a cell phone at the time of the accident. Anything could have taken his eyes off the road for that second – something on the side of the road could have distracted him. Let’s not assume the worst in this kid.
Making an assumption that he may have been texting would not constitute “assuming the worst” – only a very small percentage of kids consider texting and driving to be even remotely dangerous.
Every now and then the commenters here baffle me. First we place blame on what may or may not have caused an accident (which, incidentally is named an accident by the very nature of the word) – the driver, the car, DHHS (seriously?!), technology, speed limits, incidental stories about the same road…
And then the politics start.
That leads to an argument, about something that may or may not be related to the story at hand.
Add in a few misconstrued comments about partial quotes and the blame game grows.
Did anyone look at the pictures of the car?
Did anyone notice that no one died?
Stop the BS, and start well-wishing, and giving thanks to the rescuers who helped those in either vehicle.
…and on this day, not a damn was given.
There are too many people who drive who shouldn’t. This driver has demonstrated he does not have the ability to control a motor vehicle. In situations like this, the license should be suspended. Then, the driver should complete a safety driving course. Upon passing the course, the driver issued a provisional license for at least one year, with proper restrictions. I believe this should apply to all who causes serious auto accidents.
If (and only if) it is determined that unsafe driving practices contributed to the accident.
It would be interesting to know if this 19 year old had more than minimum insurance coverage on his vehicle in order to pay for that school bus.
As a teacher within this district, I urge all readers to use compassion in regards to the real people behind this terrible accident. I can speak for all of us at rsu 17 when I say our hearts hurt for everyone involved – students, bus driver, and most of all the Buffington family, who face a long road to recovery ahead. I drive this road twice a day, and it’s the worst part of my commute. It is narrow, bumpy, crowned and curved, and its lack of shoulder leaves no room for error. Not a day has gone by when I haven’t been tailgated; passed like I’m standing still; crowded to the side by someone over the yellow line; or surprised by wildlife. Please don’t jump to conclusions – we are thankful that everyone will, with time, heal.
Amen.