School bus involved in Dudley collision

Date:  Tuesday July 10, 2012
Location:  West Main at Center Road, Dudley

Particulars:   A three vehicle collision on West Main Street in Dudley Tuesday, sent two of the drivers to area hospitals and tied up traffic on the secondary highway for over an hour.

Just after 12:30 PM, the dispatcher at the Dudley Police Department received a call reporting a serious motor vehicle accident involving a student-loaded school bus from Bay Path Vocational School in Charlton.  The crash had occurred at the intersection of West Main Street and Center Road.  The dispatcher immediately notified police cruisers on the road to respond and dispatched the Dudley Fire Department for a paramedic ambulance and fire rescue personnel.

As emergency crews arrived on scene, they found two cars had collided at the intersection, sending one of the vehicles almost head on into the school bus.  The bus was apparently stopped and waiting to turn into Center Road.  Dudley Paramedics Chet Moroz and Erik Spahl immediately began to assess the accident scene, determining how many of the involved people were injured.  Luckily, none of the children or the driver of the school bus was injured, but the operators of the other two vehicles would need medical attention, and would be treated and transported by ambulance to area hospitals.

Dudley Fire Chief Dean Kochanowski arrived on scene to assume command and requested additional ambulances to the scene to assist Dudley paramedics.  Ambulances from the towns of Southbridge and Oxford resonded.  A second and unrelated ambulance call occurred at the same time as the call for the accident was received, and that call was aptly handled by Webster EMS.

Dudley firefighters working on scene were tasked with controlling the flow of leaking vehicle fluids and cutting power to the vehicles’ electrical systems.  Dudley police officers on scene had the difficult job of redirecting traffic around the crash scene, keeping firefighters and paramedics safe while they worked.

Two vehicle operators were transported from the scene to area hospitals, but their condition was not known.  The cause of the accident is currently undetermined, and is being investigated by members of the Dudley Police Department and the Massachusetts State Police Accident Reconstruction Unit.