3 School Buses Crash in Arkansas; Injuries Mostly Minor

Authorities in Lake Village, Ark., say 76 students were hospitalized after three school buses collided Nov. 24 on U.S. 65 between Lake Village and Eudora.

The students, who were in grades four through 12 in the Lakeside School District were taken to Chicot Memorial Hospital in Lake Village, in southern Arkansas. Authorities say none of the injuries were life-threatening, but that three students and one bus driver suffered serious injuries.

“Many of them were taken to the hospital as a precaution,” Chicot County Sheriff Ronald Nichols said.

Arkansas State Police say that the three buses were traveling in a line from Lake Village to Eudora, when the bus at the rear slammed into the middle bus. The middle bus then hit the front bus.

“It was kind of a chain reaction-type deal,” said Sgt. Brady Gore of the Arkansas State Police.

Nichols said the driver in the rear bus suffered some of the most serious injuries. The students on the bus were from the Eudora area and were on their way home from school in Lake Village, Nichols said.

The crash scene is in far southeast Arkansas, near where Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi meet.

Information from: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, www.arkansasonline.com