Tulsa School Bus, Pickup Collide After Just Second Day Of School

A school bus full of children and a pickup collided in East Tulsa about 3 p.m. on Friday.

The kids walked away with minor cuts and bruises, but a neighbor said the ingredients are there for another accident, if folks don't slow down.

The accident happened at the intersection of East 16th Street and South 85th East Avenue, near Memorial. People who live in the neighborhood say drivers are going too fast with buses dropping kids off from school.

Police say the driver of the pickup ran a stop sign and slammed into the front of the bus, loaded with kids headed home from school.

"Most of the kids got pretty scared and some of them got hurt, including my friend--she got a busted lip," said Brody Bartholomew.

Bartholomew had just finished his second day of sixth grade at Skelly Elementary.

"When I started to look up I smashed my head on there," he said.

Twenty-five of his fellow students and the bus driver all escaped any severe injury. They weren't too shaken up.

A second bus was brought in to take kids home and get them reunited with their parents.

"It was so loud, I thought, 'Oh my God, somebody's house just exploded,'" said Sheila Eytcheson, who lives nearby.

Neighbors who saw the accident rushed to see if they could help.

"He didn't stop, he just barreled, he just kept going right towards the school bus," Eytcheson said.

Police say, with school in session, now is the time to pay closer attention to the roads.

"We see this type of thing every year, right around when kids are being dropped off in neighborhoods," said Tulsa Police Cpl. Ken Simpson.

Eytcheson said she's sees too many people speeding through her neighborhood.

"Slow down, especially in these residential areas. I mean, it's only supposed to be 20-25 miles per hour, I mean please you guys got children out here now," she said.

TPS said they notified all the parents who had kids on the bus during the accident, so they could get picked up.

EMSA says they took the 49-year-old driver of the pickup to an area hospital.