Bus crash alters trip

Published in Long Beach City College's Viking newspaper in 2006.

A female motorcyclist traveling down Big Pines highway, 10 miles northwest of Wrightwood, collided with a bus carrying about 30 LBCC geology students and their professor Sunday, May 7 physical science teacher Douglas Britton said.
Just after 2 p.m., the bus driver was motoring up an incline at roughly 15 mph when the motorcyclist appeared from around a bend, traveling in the wrong lane Britton said.
"The bus driver made a move in attempt to avoid the collision," Britton said Tuesday, May 9. "The move probably saved the lady's life."
Britton said the accident happened on the way home at the end of the field trip.
Britton said no one on the bus was injured, but the motorcyclist, coherent and talking, suffered from serious injuries and was airlifted to a hospital.
"I'm a motorcyclist and I've sat on the side of those roads waiting for people to be airlifted before," Britton said. "I'm glad she'll be okay."
Student Carrie Jacoby said, "A couple of students screamed or gasped as it hit. I think the driver did a good job of swerving and giving the motorcyclist more room."
The field trip was planned to examine features relating to the roughly 800-mile San Andreas Fault. In a detailed journal entry, student Brandon Humphrey wrote, "I felt the bus lurch and I jerked up in my seat. There was a popping sound and screaming."
Humphrey also wrote, "I jumped out of my seat along with another kid and we sprinted down the road about 100 yards."
Humphrey found the woman on her back with her husband slitting open the leg of her jeans and the woman's mother shaking and crying.
"I asked her what we could do," Humphrey wrote. "Someone ran back to the bus to get a first-aid kit."
Humphrey said, the motorcyclist, a medic in the army, kept repeating that she was sorry that she had hit the bus.
Apparently she saw some dirt in the road and was afraid to ride over it and possibly skid out, so she attempted to avoid it, but when she veered she landed hard against the left front tire of the school bus, the entry read.
"There was a lot of blood coming out," Humphrey wrote. "Her leg was obviously broken and her wrists were at odd angles."
Humphrey wrote that the bus was out of commission due to a damaged tire and the group waited 4 hours for a rescue bus to arrive and then came home.
Efforts to find the name of the motorcyclist, her condition, and the name of the hospital were unsuccessful.