Boy, 5, killed by school bus

[Analog]

March 17, 2004
He saw it coming.

Robert Birdsall watched as his 5-year-old neighbor darted in front of a school bus Tuesday morning.

"Stop," he recalled shouting as Mikel Mills ran from his Ypsilanti Township home.

But it was too late. Seconds later, the boy, a kindergartner at Haggerty Elementary School, was dead, struck by the school bus he was running to catch.

A group of children had just boarded the bus and the driver was preparing to pull away when Mikel ran from his home across the street, said Cmdr. Dave Egeler of the Washtenaw County Sheriff's Department.

The accident occurred at 8:30 a.m. in the 2300 block of Cedarcliff in the West Willow subdivision.

Birdsall said the moment before the bus hit the boy "felt like forever."

He watched in horror as the bus rolled forward.

"She went the distance of one house to the next and stopped," Birdsall said of the bus driver.

Mikel was dragged along and was behind the front wheels when the bus stopped, he said. Egeler said the child was killed instantly.

Text

 

[ctcsoft]

depressing and sad.

poor kid. it maddens me when people die for no reason over stupid crap. I bet the older neighbor
felt so helpless.

 

[SSP]

Soo sad.

 

[Bullhonkie]

That's horrible.

 

[SeaSerpent]

 

[rh71]

Wow... killed instantly... how could the driver not see the boy if he/she was already going fast enough to kill on contact ?

 

[Azraele]

So sad.

 

[Kelvrick]

Originally posted by: rh71
Wow... killed instantly... how could the driver not see the boy if he/she was already going fast enough to kill on contact ?

Maybe he got dragged under the wheels? I think a bus would be heavy enough to kill instantly.

 

[Nitemare]

Originally posted by: rh71
Wow... killed instantly... how could the driver not see the boy if he/she was already going fast enough to kill on contact ?

He was caught up in the wheel, those public school buses weigh like 15-20 tons or something

That's

 

[PanzerIV]

That kind of stuff always really gets to me. I always think of my own kids and the horror of losing them. Only five years old. *sigh*

 

[Tom]

Originally posted by: rh71
Wow... killed instantly... how could the driver not see the boy if he/she was already going fast enough to kill on contact ?

A bus wouldn't need to go very fast to do that. The bus driver would be watching the kids get on the bus, and taking their seats, the opposite direction from the side of the street the boy came from. Then even if she/he looked ahead before moving, the visibility out of the front of some buses would be such that a small child coudn't be seen if he was right in front of the bus.

 

[Xionide]

 

[OutHouse]

God that sucks. my son will be 5 in July.

 

[Bassyhead]

man thats sad, too bad to hear about things like this