3 Children Unhurt as Bus Overturns : School Vehicle, Car Collide at Mission Viejo Intersection

Three disabled children, all wearing seat belts, escaped injury when their small school bus overturned after it was struck broadside by a car Wednesday afternoon in Mission Viejo.

The collision occurred after the bus, southbound on Via Aurora, halted at a stop sign at Aliso Parkway. The bus driver then started to cross the intersection, into the path of an eastbound Volvo station wagon which had the right-of-way, according to California Highway Patrol spokesman George Luce.

The force of the crash flipped the 20-passenger bus onto its left side, but seat belts worn by the students, three boys ages 8, 11 and 12, and bus driver Doris Mae Nelson, 65, saved them from injury, Luce said.

However, the Volvo driver, Joyce Swaving, 36, of Dana Point, was taken to Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center in Mission Viejo for treatment of neck injuries.

“The school bus driver was at fault here,” according to Luce, who said the accident was a right-of-way violation. “She stopped for the stop sign and then proceeded out. The other driver didn’t have a stop sign.”

No citations will be issued until a CHP investigation is completed, Luce said.

Nelson, certified by the state to drive a school bus, was also involved in an accident last November in Orange, according to the Department of Motor Vehicles. She was not ticketed at the time, and no further information was available Wednesday.

The students, from San Clemente, San Juan Capistrano and Laguna Hills, were shaken but agreed to go home on another bus after they were found to be uninjured.

“They were a little hesitant about getting on another bus,” according to Jaqueline Cerra, spokeswoman for Capistrano Unified School District. “But the school bus driver (Nelson) volunteered to get on the other bus with them.”

The boys--one of whom is hearing-impaired and two of whom are physically disabled--were being transported home from special classes at Kaiser Elementary School and Marden School of Educational Therapy, both in Costa Mesa, Cerra said. Names of the students were withheld by Capistrano Unified officials. The district has a contract with Newport-Mesa Unified School District for special-education services.

The accident comes barely a month after another crash in which a school van overturned. One child was seriously injured on Aug. 7 when a motorist who failed to stop for a red light struck the side of a van carrying a preschool teacher and eight children. The students on the van, operated by Sonshine Pre-School in Garden Grove, all wore seat belts.

Also, 12 students were slightly injured in April when a pickup truck collided with a van transporting students from Capistrano Valley Christian School. That crash, which occurred in San Juan Capistrano, was caused by the driver of the pickup truck, who tried to make a left turn in front of the oncoming van, CHP officials said. No information was available on whether those children wore seat belts.

Seat belts are not required on full-size school buses, which are larger than the one that crashed Wednesday. Efforts to pass legislation requiring them have failed amid protests that lap belts might increase bus injuries by throwing students forward into the backs of other seats. Passenger vans, however, are usually equipped by the manufacturers with seat belts.