Bourbon Man Hits School Bus In St. Joe CountyST. JOSEPH COUNTY – A Bourbon man was involved in a crash with a school bus Monday in St. Joseph County.
Four students and the driver – Lee Motz, 28, Bourbon – were sent to the hospital.
The Union-North United School Corp. bus had 20 students on it, according to a news release from the Indiana State Police.
The preliminary investigation by ISP trooper Jon Price indicates that around 7:51 a.m. Monday, a 2005 Freightliner school bus, driven by Laura Watts, 31, of Lakeville, was eastbound on Pierce Road. Watts stopped and picked up students in front of 20884 Pierce Road. As Watts accelerated the bus from the stop, it was struck from behind by a tan 2005 Ford Expedition driven by Motz.
Four students were transported from the scene with complaints of pain, including two 9-year-old boys, a 5-year-old girl and a 15-year-old girl. All were treated for minor injuries and released from Saint Joseph Regional Medical Center in Plymouth.
Motz was taken to Memorial Hospital in South Bend for injuries that were not considered life-threatening.
Pierce Road was closed between Michigan Road and Kenilworth until approximately 11 a.m. for the crash investigation and removal of the vehicles.
Alcohol or drugs are not suspected as factors in the crash, which remains under investigation.
ISP was assisted by the St. Joseph County Police Department, North Liberty Police Department and the Marshall County Sheriff’s Department.
Monday’s accident was the latest crash in Indiana involving a school bus.
Twins Xzavier and Mason Ingle, 6, and their sister, Alivia Stahl, 9, were killed when they were hit by a pickup as they were getting on a school bus Oct. 30 at a mobile home park on Ind. 25 in Fulton County.
Winamac Middle School student Marshall Owen Abbott, 13, died Dec. 5 when the Eastern Pulaski Community Schools bus he was on was hit by a truck on U.S. 31, just north of Argos, as it was headed to the Wagon Wheel Center for the Arts for a production of “Elf, the Musical.”
