By Jeff Lipton
According to police, 19 children who attend Orah Day Camp in Far Rockaway were being driven home to Cedarhurst at about 2:20 p.m. on July 25 when the bus driver apparently swerved to avoid hitting a bus near Rock Hall Road. The mini-school bus then plowed into a 2001 GMC Suburban in front of it, police said.
The school bus driver, identified as Clifton Rawlins, 46, of Edgemere, told police he abruptly changed lanes to avoid hitting the other bus, which then left the scene.
The mini-school bus was traveling north on Route 878, also known as the Nassau Expressway, when the accident occurred. Four children, who suffered cuts, scrapes and bruises, were taken to South Nassau Communities Hospital in Oceanside for treatment, officials said. The children were identified by police as Ariel Lazar, 7, and her sister Ilena, 5, and Ariela Weiss, 7, and her brother Ricky, 5. The children also suffered neck pain, police said.
The rest of the children were examined at the scene and, except for being shaken up, were not injured, police and fire officials said. The occupants of the Suburban, identified as Tracey Hanley, 39, and her daughter Erin, 10, were taken to Long Beach Hospital after they complained of neck and back pain, according to officials at the Lawrence-Cedarhurst Fire Department.
Parents who found out about the accident rushed to the scene and discovered several ambulances, police cars and fire trucks closing off northbound traffic on Route 878. Some children who were crying were comforted by camp directors, parents and emergency personnel. Children who were shaken up were given water as they rested in the hot sun.
A rabbi who is in charge of the camp was busy comforting children and their parents, hustling from one family to the next to fill them in on what happened. Everything is fine, he said. Everything is being taken care of very nicely. Everyone did a job they were supposed to do. Everyone is fine.
From 2:30 to 3:30 p.m., relieved parents picked up their children and hurried them away from the scene. Thank God, they are OK, said one woman as she walked hastily away from the accident scene with her two children.
Everybody is all right, thank God, said another woman tending to two children who were sent to the hospital for treatment.
Police said they issued a ticket to the driver of the mini-school bus for driving an uninsured motor vehicle.
According to a police spokesperson at the Fourth Precinct, the mini-school bus, owned by Rivlab Transportation on Rockaway Turnpike in Cedarhurst, was not designed to carry the number of passengers it was transporting. There was not enough room for everybody, the spokesperson said. It was overcrowded, evidently, for the [number of] passengers it was carrying.
Officials are still investigating, police said.
It was just an accident, said one Fourth Precinct police official at the scene.
The mini-bus sustained severe front-end damage from the collision.
When police cleared the scene shortly after 4 p.m., the northbound lanes of Route 878 were reopened to traffic.
