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Pasco Practices Dealing With Bus Crashes

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By RONNIE BLAIR | The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 27, 2009

NEW PORT RICHEY - Pasco County school officials and emergency agencies joined forces this morning to practice for a scenario they would prefer not to face – a school bus accident with a dead driver and injured students.
The emergency and school personnel, assisted by 40 student volunteers, played out the mock accident in a Gulf High School parking lot where a day earlier they had turned an out-of-commission school bus on its side to help set the stage.
Lt. Brian Prescott, who supervises school resource officers for the Pasco County Sheriff's Office, said it was important to run the drill to improve the chances things move smoothly when a real accident happens.
"These school buses transport the most precious resource on earth – our children," Prescott said. "They aren't transporting watermelons."
The school district has 430 buses with about 36,000 students riding them daily.
Cpl. Shane Collier, a school resource officer who helped plan the drill, said the any flaws in the system discovered during the exercise would be discussed later in the day during a debriefing.
In addition to the sheriff's office and school district, other agencies participating included Pasco County Emergency Management Services, Pasco Fire Rescue, the New Port Richey Police Department and Community Hospital of New Port Richey.
Emergency planners tried to work as many real-life details into the scenario as possible, including upset parents who kept trying to slip past deputies to get to the students.
"We are actually transporting the kids to the hospital," Collier said.

Reporter Ronnie Blair can be reached at (813) 948-4218.

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