27 Pupils Hurt as Truck Rams Bus : Ventura, Hollywood Freeway Traffic Tied Up Two Hours

Thirty people, including 27 elementary school children, were injured this morning when a truck driven by a suspected drunk driver slammed into the rear of a school bus on the Ventura Freeway in Studio City, authorities said.

None of the injuries were considered serious. The frightened children along with the Los Angeles Unified School District bus driver and a teacher’s aide who was on the bus were taken to six area hospitals to be treated for bruises and cuts and to be checked for further injuries.

Lorenzo Perez, 27, of Lynwood, the driver of the six-ton meat truck, was also slightly injured. He was treated at the Van Nuys jail where he was taken after being arrested on suspicion of drunk driving, the California Highway Patrol reported.

The accident occurred about 7:45 a.m. as the bus carrying about 50 students from schools in Hollywood and the Wilshire District was headed westbound on the freeway toward Woodland Hills where the students attend Serrania Avenue Elementary School, authorities said.

The rush-hour accident on the busy freeway closed two lanes of westbound traffic for more than two hours and traffic was tied up to the east and west and on the Hollywood Freeway through the Cahuenga Pass to Hollywood and downtown.

CHP Officer Dave Grajeda said the bus was just west of the Hollywood Freeway interchange when a car, driven by Maria Menjivar, 33, of North Hollywood made a lane change in front of it and then spun out of control for an unknown reason.

“This caused the bus to brake abruptly,” Grajeda said. “The meat truck then struck the school bus.”

The bus was then pushed into the car that had spun out. The chain reaction accident resulted in the children getting “thrown around in the bus quite a bit,” said Los Angeles Fire Department Inspector Ed Reed.

“I was scared,” said 10-year-old Meline Aridjian, a fifth grader. She said she was sitting near the front of the bus and was thrown into a steel bar in front of her seat when the bus was struck. “They were all screaming,” she said of her fellow students. “I was crying.”

The little girl told paramedics her chest hurt from where she hit the bar. She was taken to St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank where she was examined and later released to her parents.

Bus driver Derrick Ford, 22, of Palmdale, said the crash into the rear of the bus came without warning and was accompanied by a chorus of shouts from the frightened children.

“It was damned scary,” said Ford, a district bus driver for four years. “The truck hit real hard. No warning, whatsoever.”

The back of the bus was caved in completely crushed and the front of the meat truck was heavily damaged, police said. The truck was impounded by the CHP, Grajeda said. Menjivar, the driver of the car that spun out, was not injured.

Uninjured students, many still shaken by the accident, were placed on another bus and driven to Serrania Elementary, officials said.