After rain early Thursday morning, a school bus picking up students slid off a road in southwest Edmonton.
Police said the school bus, with 17 schoolchildren on board was approaching Woolsey Link on 170 Street when it hit some ice on the road.
“[The driver] approached the stop sign due to the extremely icy conditions was unable to stop and got stuck in the trees there,” Const. Myles Stromner said at the scene.
“Looks like there was water running down the road all night and there’s no exposed pavement at all. It was pure ice, even when emergency services attended it was very difficult to stop.”
No one was injured in the incident, and the bus only sustained minor damage, if any.
As for the kids, another school bus came and took them to school, and they appeared to be in good spirits.
“They were laughing, joking, no injuries, everybody appeared to be in a fairly good mood considering,” Const. Stromner said.
EPS credited the bus driver, whose actions prevented what could have been a worse collision.
“It would have been really easy just to lay on the brakes and drive straight ahead and crash into the wall,” Const. Stromner said.
“The driver…was able to stay off the brakes just enough that he was able to maintain steering, just got the bus stuck as opposed to crashing it.”
Police shut down the road as they waited for a tow truck to pull out the bus. EPS said a sanding truck had also been called in to deal with the ice.
