School bus slides into Eastern Passage ditch, 1 injured

Nova Scotia's francophone school board says one child suffered a sore ankle after a school bus slid into a ditch in Eastern Passage on Wednesday morning.

The crash happened just before 7:30 a.m. on Cherylann Drive off Cow Bay Road. The bus was serving a school in the Conseil scolaire acadien provincial (CSAP).

The children remained in police cars and waited for a second bus to pick them up and take them to school.

The girl who was injured was taken home by her mother.

Dianne Racette, the regional director of the central region at CSAP, said the bus was taking Grade Primary to Grade 6 students to cole Bois-Joli in Dartmouth.

"The bus driver was proceeding with caution and the rear end of the bus started dragging towards the ditch," she said.

"He made an attempt to being the rear end back but unfortunately wasn't able to do so."

Some children at the scene were crying, while others were high fiving. Once the children boarded the second bus, they cheered.

RCMP said there were 15 students and a driver on the bus at the time of the crash. They were checked out by paramedics at the scene, which is part of CSAP protocol when a bus is involved in a crash.

The mother of the girl who was hurt said her daughter was thrown from one side of the bus to the other. She said the girl was more shaken up than hurt. The child left the bus clutching a teddy bear.

Racette said deciding when to cancel a bus is never an easy decision.

"We start having the discussions anytime after 5 o'clock which is not an easy time to make a decision because road conditions can also change between that time and when buses are on the roads," she said.

"With the information we had this morning, we did believe that it was OK to put the buses on the roads within the HRM area."

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