Parents and students involved in a fatal bus crash that happened in Southeast Bakersfield are calling KHSD bus driver Sherrie Ortiz a guardian angel for her ability to command the situation and keep the frightened students calm despite her own injuries. 23ABC's Corey O'Leary spoke with those involved to learn more about their experience.
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00:00 details on the deadly crash involving a school bus and a minivan last night in
00:04 southeast Bakersfield. The driver of the minivan died in the crash. 23 ABC's
00:09 Corio Leary spoke with those involved who are still in a state of shock. I'm
00:14 just south of East Bell Terrace on Mount Vernon Drive where yesterday a
00:18 Toyota Santa minivan traveling southbound drifted into oncoming
00:24 traffic and collided head on with a school bus. The school bus was filled
00:28 with Golden Valley high school students and staff headed to a football game. You
00:33 can still see at this location some of the debris that's scattered about on
00:37 the streets and the side of the road that was left by the impact.
00:41 We're just having fun talking and all of a sudden we all look up and there's a
00:51 car right heading straight for us. A student on that bus sharing his
00:55 experience. Everything was like there's glass going all around people screaming
01:01 and it was bad. Kyle Streeter says he tensed up during the collision and at
01:07 the time he didn't believe it was actually happening. I saw the windshield
01:11 was fully off. There's no windshield and just my first thought was to call my
01:18 mom. My son called me and it was one of the most terrifying moments. I could
01:22 hear the alarm going off in the background. I could hear the boys voices.
01:26 It was a very scary and emotional time for us. I need to be there. I need to
01:31 get to my son. When she arrived at the crash scene chaos it was there was
01:36 debris everywhere. I saw the vehicle, I saw the bus and they were stopping us
01:42 parents. They weren't letting us go through at first and then they
01:45 eventually came and they let one parent from each student go to the bus. Others
01:49 stunned by the aftermath of the crash. The other driver's car was it wasn't
01:54 even a car anymore on the side of the road when I passed it. It was just it
01:58 looked like a ball of foil. The driver of the minivan died in the bus driver
02:03 and two students were transported to a hospital for mild to moderate injuries.
02:07 The name of the person who died has not been released. The California Highway
02:11 Patrol says it has not determined why the minivan went into the oncoming
02:14 traffic lane. But one mother said her son saw what happened. He said that the
02:19 car was in the middle of the road that it was trying to pass another car and
02:24 it was going super fast like because it was it just seemed like it was going
02:28 really fast at him and then it hit the bus and the bus driver swerved like a
02:33 little. He was on the driver's side by the emergency exit and he said he just
02:38 saw the car flying past him. That car was the minivan that was struck. That's
02:43 when the bus the bus driver got a control of it like and pulled it off to
02:48 the side. He said that she did an amazing job. She made us take role, had
02:53 it make a seating chart. She was telling our players to keep calm and she was
02:59 telling the injured one to calm down that he's going to be okay. Knowing that
03:05 she was hurt herself and that she did this and managed to take care of our
03:10 boys, the parents of the team, we just really want to thank her. Bus driver is
03:14 our our angel. Honestly, she is our guiding angel for our bulldog boys.
03:19 Corio. Larry 23 abc News connecting you.
03:23 Now we reached out to our local California Highway Patrol office to get
03:29 a check on how many crashes have involved school buses. Recently, we have
03:32 an in depth look at the data given to us that represents crashes from the last
03:36 four years in the state. According to CHP officials so far in 2023, there
03:41 have been 22 crashes involving school buses all but this most recent crash
03:47 only involved property damage. In 2022 there were 36 crashes. Four of those
03:52 crashes involved only complaints of pain. In 2021 there were 28 crashes
03:57 total with two of those for complaint of pain only. And in 2020 there were
04:02 only 10 crashes and all of them no injuries or deaths were reported.