School bus strikes pedestrian

A woman suffered minor injuries Friday afternoon when she was struck by a school bus after exiting her vehicle to exchange information with the driver of another vehicle after a separate accident minutes earlier.

Independence Police Traffic Unit Sgt. John Passiglia said the woman was northbound on Lee’s Summit Road near the entrance ramp onto Interstate 70 around 3:30 p.m. when she was involved in the first incident, which Passiglia described as minor. The woman exited the vehicle to exchange insurance information with the other driver.

Passiglia said a line of traffic formed after the accident, prompting vehicles to inch by the two involved vehicles. When a school bus transporting school children home from Delta Woods Middle School tried to inch through the vehicles, the driver of the school bus clipped the woman and knocked her to the pavement, Passiglia said, causing minor injuries, including a possible broken hand.

The Blue Springs School District’s transportation director, Glenn McMillian, said nearly 40 students from Delta Woods were on the bus, but none of the students reported injuries. McMillian said the driver of the school bus was instructed after the accident to take the students to their scheduled stops and that a decision on the driver’s status would not be known until an investigation is completed.

“All I can tell you now is that we will be doing a full investigation,” McMillian said.

The driver of the school bus may face possible charges, but the drivers involved in the initial accident will probably not be ticketed, Passiglia said.