Child killed, 4 people injured in Arizona when semi-truck plows into school bus

A child was killed Sunday and four other people injured when a semi-truck slammed into a school bus on an Arizona highway, jamming the bus into a van.

All three vehicles were traveling on Interstate 40 in eastern Arizona at around 9 a.m. when the van and the bus slowed because of an accident up ahead. The truck didn’t, Arizona Department of Public Safety officials told The Associated Press.

The bus was transporting 19 staff and students from Holbrook Indian School on a field trip to Window Rock, the Navajo-Hopi Observer reported. The accident occurred about 55 miles east of Holbrook. The school said six people were injured, according to the Observer.

Authorities did not reveal the name or age of the child who had died, or release information on any of the four injured people, other than that they were on the bus as well. The Department of Public Safety did not specify whether the injured were children, KNXV-TV reported.

The accident took place outside Sanders, in Apache County, about 140 miles east of Flagstaff and 240 miles northeast of Phoenix, near the New Mexico border.

“Our concerns now are for our parents and families as we uphold and grieve with them,” Holbrook Vice-Principal Ulysses Campos told the Observer. “We ask that you would be patient and respectful as we work through this as a school community, and we solicit your prayers on behalf of everyone impacted by this tragedy.”

With News Wire Services