Truck Rams School Bus; Driver Dies, 30 Kids Hurt -- Nursing Home Becomes Makeshift Emergency Room After Foggy Wreck

EASTON, Md. - A tractor-trailer broadsided a school bus this morning on a fog-shrouded highway, killing the bus driver and injuring more than 30 children, some severely.

The bus, carrying about 35 children, mostly middle-school students, was crossing busy U.S. 50 when it was hit on the driver's side. The front of the bus was almost severed, witnesses and officials said.

"There were bodies everywhere," said Terry Satchell, emergency medical supervisor for the Easton Volunteer Fire Department. "The injuries ranged from very severe to very minor."

More than 30 students were treated at The Pines Center, a nursing home near the accident scene where a makeshift emergency room was set up.

About two dozen more seriously injured students were taken by ambulance to a hospital.

Rescue crews had difficulty opening the bus doors to get the children out, said Jan Swain, who works at the Bob Smith Automotive Center across the street.

"Our employees went out to help," she said. "The children were scared and shivering, so we went out to try to console them until the rescue workers could get to them."

"We didn't see it because it was too foggy, but we heard it," said Jill Kaufman, a nursing-home employee. "We all ran out."

George Pringle, supervisor of transportation for Talbot County schools, said there was no fog at 6 a.m. when school officials decided not to delay classes. Schools in neighboring Dorchester County started classes two hours late because of fog.

"The fog rolled in around 6:45 a.m. There's nothing we could do about it," Pringle said.

The bus driver, Wardell Brice, 61, was dead at the scene.

The driver of the tractor-trailer, Huey Leon Lamb, 57, of Mississippi, was charged with failure to grant right of way and driving too fast for conditions, said Easton Police Chief Walter Chase.

Sam Fortner, a manager at the automotive center, said his security-camera videotape shows the bus stopping at the intersection.

"You couldn't see if a light was there because of the fog. The bus sat there for a couple of minutes; you could see it start to pull off, then you heard a loud, loud crash," Fortner said.

Bill Ethridge, president of A&B Trucking in Shannon, Miss., said the driver told him "it was zero visibility out there. . . . He's OK, but he's really shaken up about the kids."