News: Young Boy Killed In Bus Accident
(Long Island, N.Y.) A six-year-old boy was killed Tuesday evening in Hempstead when a Nassau Inter County Express bus slammed into the front of his bedroom. The driver of the bus had swerved, attempting to avoid hitting a pedestrian. The pedestrian was hit, suffering minor injury as a result of the collision.
Eleven of the bus’s estimated twenty passengers also suffered non-life-threatening injuries from the accident. The NICE bus crashed into the two-story home around nine-thirty that evening while heading west near the intersection of Fulton Avenue and Nassau Place. The four-lane roadway proved deadly when the swerving bus pinned the six-year-old to the interior of his home.
The boy was attempting to close his bedroom door at the time of the accident. His seven-year-old brother had been sleeping and suffered minor injuries. Both boys were taken to Winthrop University Hospital in Mineola and joined by their parents.
Sometime after ten that evening the six-year-old was pronounced dead. The pedestrian was taken to Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow, and the passengers of the bus were transported to local hospitals. Among the emergency responders were Hempstead Village Police, Nassau County Police, and nearby fire departments.
Despite the ongoing investigation, no criminal charges were filed. The boy and his family lived at the multi-family residence for a little over a year, and were said to have come from El Salvador nine years prior. An eighty-four-year-old man from Levittown is the owner of the two-story house, located about twelve feet from the roadway.
According to reports, other residents of the house retrieved the seven-year-old from his ruined bedroom. Firefighters found the six-year-old after a fifty-minute search. Another fatal bus crash occurred just hours prior when a thirty-five-year-old pedestrian was struck in Coram and pronounced dead at the scene.
After about forty years under the Metropolitan Transit Authority, Nassau County bus routes have been taken over by a different company. According to reports, the MTA eliminated bus routes because they hadn’t received enough money from the county. Rather than pay the difference, the county switched companies and the MTA voted to end service.
