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In 3rd deadly bus crash this week, student killed on way to Christmas musical

Posted at 6:56 AM, Dec 06, 2018
and last updated 2018-12-06 08:56:24-05

By Jason Hanna and Joe Sutton, CNN

An Indiana middle school student was killed Wednesday in a school bus wreck on the way to a Christmas musical, one of three fatal US wrecks involving buses carrying children to or from events this week.

In the Indiana crash, a truck hit the school bus from behind just after 9 a.m. on US 31 near Argos, about 30 miles south of South Bend, the Indiana State Police said.

A teenage boy seated in the rear of the bus was killed; his name was not released.

Another student was airlifted to a hospital with injuries not believed to be life-threatening, and other students were taken to another hospital for complaints of pain, police said.

The Eastern Pulaski Community School Corp. bus was taking 38 eighth-graders and three chaperones to a Christmas musical in Warsaw, about 25 miles east of the crash site.

The bus had stopped at a railroad crossing and had just started to accelerate when the truck hit it from behind, police said.

Both drivers submitted to toxicology tests, as law requires for fatal crashes, and police are awaiting the results.

Weather is not believed to be a factor in the crash, police said, and further details weren’t immediately available.

Two other fatal crashes involving buses transporting children to or from events happened this week:

• In Illinois, a truck driving the wrong way crashed with a school bus carrying a girls basketball team Wednesday night on Interstate 74 outside Bloomington, killing two men — the truck’s driver and a volunteer traveling with the team — and injuring eight girls and another man.

• In Arkansas, a charter bus carrying a youth all-star football team from Tennessee overturned early Monday on I-30 near Benton,killing one child and injuring 45 others, mostly children, police said.