Posted at: 11/18/2009 11:30 PM
By: Jill Kasparie

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School Bus Vs. Car Crash

(ABC 6 NEWS) -- Several people are injured after a school bus, with kids on board, collides with car in Rochester.

"It was crazy, I’ve never seen an accident like that before, it was scary," said Jennifer Prigge.

Prigge watched as an accident involving a school bus and a vehicle unfolded right in front of her at Highway 63 North and 75th St. in Rochester.

"They were going to make a u-turn and the bus hit them," Prigge said.

Twenty-two children were on that bus.

Emergency responders say they were from the Wabasha-Kellogg school district.

They were headed for the civic center for a band concert, but they never made it.

"There were four patients, four students, that went by ambulance on stretchers and an additional four students that walked off the bus and onto the ambulance to be checked out on a precautionary basis at the hospital,” Battalion Chief Steve Belau of the Rochester Fire Department said.

Responders say all eight of the children experienced minor injuries.

"There was a complaint of an ankle injury and some chest pains, some neck pains," Belau said.

But the two people in the vehicle faced more severe injuries.

"One occupant of the vehicle was air lifted by mayo one and the other was taken by ambulance."

Hospital officials confirmed that one was in critical condition. 

After all ten of the injured were taken to the hospital, the rest of the children went home.

ABC 6 tried to get in contact with Wabasha-Kellogg school officials Wednesday evening.

We were told that the principal was tending to the injured children at the hospital and the superintendent was unavailable.

Some of the names of the people in that crash were released Wednesday night.

The driver of the bus is 57-year-old Kathleen O’Donnell of Wabasha.

In the other car, the driver was 75-year-old Robert Temple and his passenger 77-year-old Leona Temple, also of Wabasha.