Union County, NC — In all, 19 people were injured in an accident involving a school bus in Union County, North Carolina, on Monday, January, 5, 2014. The accident happened in the 1500 block of Unionville-Indian Trail Road, around 7:45 in the morning.
According to local news sources, the accident occurred when a school bus driver was traveling north and drifted off the road and over-corrected, crashing into a minivan before rolling over.
The driver of the school bus was identified as Jennifer Blake. The driver of the minivan was named Stacie Pressley. The names of the others injured in the accident were not released.
There were 20 students aboard the bus at the time of the crash. Of those, 16 were sent to local hospitals. The nature of their injuries wasn’t elaborated on. Reports say that Pressley was transported to Carolinas Medical Center Union by medical helicopter. A two-year old in her minivan was taken to Carolinas Medical Center Main Hospital.
Scene of the Accident
Commentary
Accidents involving school buses are just like any other motor vehicle accident, except they’re held to a much higher standard as far as the litigation side of things goes. This is because school buses are owned by the government, and are typically protected under the doctrine of sovereign immunity, which is basically just a fancy way of saying that filing suit against them is going to be very difficult.
In an accident like this, time is the name of the game. That means that there are going to be very strict deadlines as far as when parties have to be notified and when paperwork has to be filed. These deadlines have to be strictly adhered to. In addition to these issues, there are caps on the amount of compensation that can be recovered following an accident like this. And that amount is going to be diluted when an accident involves more than one victim. Unfortunately, this can create a race to courthouse, where everyone who was injured is trying to be the first in line.
Those involved in accidents like this can’t afford to ignore the details. It’s obvious that a person can be very badly injured in an accident like this, and when that happens, they don’t want to see that they missed their chance at having those injuries seen to because they got bad information, or talked to someone who really doesn’t understand these types of accidents.
— Grossman Law Offices
