School bus crash injures none

Frontiersman Staff

WASILLA — A school bus full of children was hit making a left turn off Bogard Road Wednesday afternoon.

“No one’s been taken to the hospital, just some shaken-up kids,” Alaska State Trooper Todd Womack said on scene as he stood next to the full-size yellow school bus.

As Womack spoke, about a dozen kids were still in the bus. He said he'd been told that at the time of the accident 31 children were on board. All appeared to be elementary schoolers.

Womack said the call came to respond to the wreck at 4:04 p.m. He said the bus was making a left turn onto Sebastian Drive. The other car, a westbound purple Plymouth Breeze, couldn’t stop.

Womack said the Plymouth’s driver, Marshal Lacher, was unhurt.

He said there was some talk that a plow truck may have delayed the busdriver, Robert Sherre, as he made his turn.

But the main reasons for the wreck, he said, were, “speed and snow and bad timing.”

Traffic around the Valley was slow much of Tuesday and Wednesday as snow sporadically fell on Wasilla and Palmer. As of 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, troopers had reported six car wrecks between the two days, most attributed either directly to the snow and ice or to drivers unable to stop in time to avoid the crash.