A 5-year-old girl was reportedly struck and killed by a school bus shortly after the driver got off the bus near her home in New York City’s northern suburbs on Friday morning.
The heartbreaking incident happened around 11:15 a.m. on South Madison Avenue in the Village of Spring Valley.
According to reports, police said the bus driver picked up the children at a nearby yeshiva and then removed the 5-year-old from the bus near his home.
The bus driver, who had not seen the girl before being hit, was distraught over the incident. witnesses told PIX 11.
“I can’t even imagine what the family is going through, including the bus driver,” one witness, who requested anonymity, told the publication.
Spring Valley resident Jean Focus wondered how the driver missed her child.
“People have to watch out for these buses. They have to watch where the kids are going. I don’t even know how it happened, but I don’t know how people can see people crossing the road. Isn’t there?” Focus told CBS News.
Another local resident, Brian DeMasi, felt the speed limit should be lowered due to the accident.
“It’s a shame. They’re going too fast down this street, too fast. They’re not going to slow down,” Demasi said.
A friend of the murdered girl’s family told CBS that her funeral was held in the neighboring town of Mondsee.
The cause of the accident is unknown and police are still investigating.
This fatal school bus crash follows a Jan. 22 bus crash in the village of New Square, also in the town of Ramapo, in which an 8-year-old boy was killed while walking home from a yeshiva.
