Ten people were taken to hospitals Wednesday after an elementary school bus in Texas rolled over on a rural road north of Austin, officials said.
The Travis County Emergency Services District said that nine of the people were students. The driver was also transported to , the agency said in a Facebook post.
One of the injuries was life-threatening, according to Kevin Parker, assistant chief with Austin-Travis County Medical Emergency Services, and two were potentially life-threatening.
The remaining injuries were not life-threatening, he said.
There were 43 people on the bus at the time. The rollover occurred after school, before any students had been dropped off, said Bruce Gearing, superintendent of the Leander Independent School District.
It isn’t clear what caused the vehicle, described by Gearing as a 2024 model with seatbelts, to drive off the right side of the road before it rolled, an official with the Texas Department of Public Safety told reporters.
The official noted a slight curve in the road and said a preliminary investigation is ongoing.
Images from the scene showed the damaged vehicle on its side.
Gearing described the driver as a seasoned veteran and said the bus primarily carries students from a local elementary school. It’s unclear how many students were wearing seatbelts when the bus rolled, he said.
“This part of our Leander ISD family has been through so much already this summer with the floods and this tragedy this afternoon is really breaking our hearts,” Gearing said. “We want each of those students and their families to know that our prayers are with them, our thoughts are with them, and we will do everything that we can in our power to support them.”
