A Pembina Hills school division bus ended up in a ditch along Highway 651 on Monday morning, delaying the school day for many children for nearly an hour.
The bus was trying to turn around using a driveway when it backed into a ditch, said division director of transportation Walter Grossenbacher. The driver tried to get the bus out, but instead the attempt caused the bus to slide further into the ditch and up against a fence.
He added the likely cause of the incident was the amount of snow to hit the region the week before.
“When you get lots of snow, it’s sometimes hard to see the driveway,” he said.
No one was injured, and a replacement bus came to take the kids to school, following normal procedure.
“Normally what we do is, we send a bus out and if it’s not too bad, we remove the kids off the bus and take them a safe distance away. Then they’ll board another bus and continue,” Grossenbacher said.
Shortly after the incident, the bus was pulled out of the ditch to be examined by a mechanic and brought back to the shop.
Grossenbacher said incidents like this happen rarely, and are usually caused by a change in the environment.
“It’s usually due to a recent snowfall and maybe the ditches aren’t defined or there’s no grader bank,” he said. “Especially for first snowfalls, they’re always worse because you don’t have a grader bank on the side to guide you, and if it’s dark, it’s a little difficult to see at times.”
Grossenbacher said the best way to sum up the incident is that it was “an inconvenience.”
