Marielsie Iglesias

Commnuity students spent several hours on the side of Interstate 80 after the bus accident, waiting for paramedics to check out students and a replacement bus to arrive.

Two Community students received minor injuries after the school bus returning the students from a field trip in Chicago collided with a semi-truck on March 15 on Interstate 80.

One student suffered a concussion, and another reported a back injury as a result of the bus rear-ending a semi when the semi abruptly stopped amid congested traffic.

The accident occurred around 3:40 p.m. as 41 students from Mr. Dave Feeney’s AP Literature and Composition classes returned from their annual trip to the Art Institute of Chicago.

“There was some construction in that area,” Feeney said, “so were kind of entering heavy traffic,” which prompted the teacher to “pay more attention than [he] normally would.”

“I thought our bus driver was at a safe distance, but I saw the semi slam on his brakes.”

“I could tell [we] weren’t slowing fast enough,” Feeney said.

Both vehicles sustained minimal physical damage, pulling to the shoulder to wait for police and paramedics to arrive.

“A few students had sore necks or backs,” Feeney said, “luckily there wasn’t anything super serious and everybody was okay.”

Feeney didn’t downplay the severity of a concussion but said the event “could have been far worse.”

“I’m so thankful that everybody was okay,” Feeney said.

Paramedics attended to the students at the scene, methodically going down the bus aisle to assess each student and providing ice packs to several.

No students required hospitalization.

For several of the seniors, the event was emotionally “unsettling.”

“Some students,” Feeney said, “I think, were just traumatized by it.”

“It wasn’t even the accident itself,” the teacher said. “I think some of it was being on the shoulder of an interstate and feeling the semis go by. The bus would shake” as the students waited for a replacement vehicle.

Others, like Elle Webb, tried to make the best of their time on the side of the highway.

“We tried to keep a light-hearted feeling and just laugh it off,” Webb said. “We didn’t let the bus crash put a damper on our day.”

While students were originally slated to return to Community at 4 p.m., they did not return to the school until 7.

“Ironically, just before the accident, I was talking to somebody on the bus about how smoothly everything had gone, and we were going make it back in record time,” Feeney said.

“We ended up making it back in record time, the other way around.”

The accident Marielsie Iglesias said wasn’t all bad.

“I talked to some kids in the class I haven’t really talked to before,” the senior said. “I feel like the trip overall was a big plus, and regardless of the crash, it was a good time.”

The incident won’t prevent future AP Lit students from attending the Art Institute next year.

“It’s not something that would make me second-guess taking kids on a trip like that,” Feeney said. Stuff like this can happen anywhere.”