19 hurt as Dutch school van collides with lorry

A Dutch school bus crashed into a truck on the A16 highway in Bourbourg, France on Thursday morning. The bus driver was rushed to the hospital in critical condition by helicopter. Sixteen kids and two adults were also injured. Two of them were taken to hospital, the others sustained minor injuries, according to NU.nl

The accident happened around 4:45 a.m. There were around 50 kids and six adults from the Strabrecht College in Geldorp on the bus. They were on their way to London for a school trip and left Geldorp around 1:00 a.m.

One dad, whose 15-year-old daughter was on the bus, spoke to her after the accident. "She saw the accident coming and could prepare herself. The bus crashed into the back of a stationary truck. Whether it was was in traffic or was broken, we don't know yet. In any case, she found it strange that the driver didn't brake", he said to Omroep Brabant. "A number of people were trapped and my daughter saw people lying on the road."

As far as is known, no one was killed in the accident. The severely injured truck driver was taken to a hospital in Lille. Emergency services took the kids to a local school, where they were checked for injuries and given breakfast, according tot he father. Eindhovens Dagblad reports that they were given shelter in an event hall in Bourbourg.

The cause of the accident is still unclear. The bus driver was able to call his employer from the ambulance, according to Eindhovens Dagblad. "In the bus itself a couple of chaperones were injured, but not very seriously", a spokesperson for bus company BBA said to the newspaper. He stressed that he may be speaking based on incomplete information.