6:12 p.m.
Richmond police charged the driver of a box truck involved in a crash with a children’s bus Wednesday afternoon with disregarding a red light.
Police charged Christopher Blackwell, 20, of the 2000 block of Eastwood Ridge Drive in Moseley, which is on the Powhatan-Chesterfield County border.
Hospital spokespersons and police said all 12 people taken to hospitals after the 1 p.m. collision at the north end of the Manchester Bridge were in stable condition or have been released.
Ten of the persons transported for care were children from the South Richmond Boys & Girls Club on Bainbridge Street. They were on a field trip to the Holocaust Museum when their bus was struck by a southbound panel truck owned by an interior landscaping firm, Buckingham Greenery.
A spokeswoman there declined comment except to say she hopes that none of the injuries was serious.
From earlier reports
Twelve people were taken to area hospitals this afternoon after a van transporting children from the Bainbridge Boys and Girls Club was hit by a truck that police said ran a red light at 9th and Byrd streets in downtown Richmond.
Police spokesman James Mercante described the scene with the van overturned on its right side as a "mass casualty incident."
Ten people were on the bus and two were in the truck, authorities said. It was not immediately known how many of the injured were children, or their conditions after the wreck that took place about 1:02 p.m.
Seven were sent to VCU Medical Center, three to Chippenham Hospital and two to St. Mary's Hospital, police said.
Joan Howlette said her grandson was aboard the bus and she was able to get a glimpse of him as he was being taken into an ambulance.
"He was bleeding from the head and had a neck brace on and they wouldn't let me see him," Howlette said.
Howlette said she believed the children were on their way to tour the Virginia Holocaust Museum.
Police said their preliminary investigation indicated the panel truck that had Buckingham Greenery lettered on its side was southbound on East Ninth Street headed toward the Manchester Bridge when it ran a red light and smashed into the van, flipping it on its right side. The van, which looks like a small school bus, was headed east on Byrd.
The bridge was closed southbound while police investigated the crash.
A person answering the phone at Buckingham Greenery's corporate office in Buckingham said company personnel had been dispatched to the scene, but had not reported back to the office. The company declined to immediately comment further.
A passenger in the truck had to be extricated using heavy equipment, police said. Nearly an hour after the wreck the truck's left front remained wedged beneath the undercarriage of the van.
(Staff writer Jeremy Slayton contributed to this report.)
(This has been a breaking news update. Check back for more details as they become available.)
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement