By Pat Maurer
Correspondent
Deputies from the Gratiot County Sheriff’s Office were dispatched to the scene of a crash involving a school bus and a pickup early Tuesday morning.
Deputies were dispatched to the intersection of Ely Highway and West Tyler Road in Arcada Township near Alma at 7:15 a.m. January 4th, where they found that a pickup truck driven by a 30-year-old St. Louis man, who was westbound on Tyler Road, failed to stop at a stop sign and was hit by an oncoming school bus. The pickup was hit in the driver’s side door by a Dean Transportation school bus that was northbound on Ely Highway.
Besides the bus driver, a 54-year-old Breckenridge woman, there were three teenage students on the bus. All four on the bus were taken to local hospitals with minor injuries.
The pickup driver, however, was critically injured and was airlifted to Butterworth Hospital. Both he and the bus driver were wearing their seat belts at the time of the crash, and alcohol does not appear to have been a factor in the accident, police said.
The crash remains under investigation.
The Michigan State Police Crash Reconstruction team, Alma Fire and Rescue, Gratiot Emergency Services Authority and Mobile Medical Response Ambulance Service assisted Deputies at the scene.
