🚀 go-pugleaf

u a PM-BusWreck 4thLd-Writethru a0537 12-17 0502
^PM-Bus Wreck, 4th Ld-Writethru, a0537,460<
^Eds: Top 6 grafs with rain, quotes from driver, pickup 3rd pvs.<
^Laserphoto Upcoming<
	   PORT GIBSON, Miss. (AP) _ A bus carrying more than 30 youngsters
to a Head Start school ran off a wooden bridge in rain and fog
today and plunged 14 feet, bursting into flames. Authorities said
four children and one adult were killed.
	   Witnesses said the dead were trapped in the burning bus, which
lay on its side in a creek bed below the bridge.
	   ``The whole road was muddy, there was mud on the bridge,'' said
Bobbie Skinner, the driver, who was hospitalized with injuries.
	   She said the bus started sliding and she could not control it.
	   ``It went down into the creek,'' she said. ``I climbed out of
the window and started pulling children out.''
	   There was misting rain in the area as the bus made its morning
round to pick up children for a Head Start program in the Pattison
community. The program is designed to help prepare low-income
pre-school children for entrance into elementary school.
	   ``There was an old lady in the bus and I tried and tried to pull
her out of a window but I couldn't because of the flames and the
smoke,'' said Dick Green, the first person to arrive at the wreck.
	   Twenty-five people, most of them children, were treated for
minor injuries and released from Claiborne County Hospital. Three
children and one adult were admitted with more serious injuries.
	   Port Gibson Police Chief Harvey Jones said the accident occurred
in the fog on a gravel road off Mississippi 548 about seven miles
east of Hermanville, which is about 10 miles east of Port Gibson.
	   The bus belonging to the local Head Start program for pre-school
children was making its morning round to pick up children.
	   George Berryhill, employed by a ranch located a few hundred
yards from the accident, said he and Green, the ranch manager,
pulled several children from the burning bus.
	   ``When I got there, my boss had already helped a lot of the
children out of the bus and they were climbing up the bank,''
Berryhill said. ``He told me there were more children in the bus
but that he had done all he could.''
	   ``I got out three children, including one girl that had her coat
on fire,'' he said. ``I just threw her in the creek to put out the
fire and then picked her up.''
	   He said the children told him that others were in the bus ``but
it was burning and there was no way to get inside.''
	   Green said the woman he tried to rescue had suffered a head
injury and appeared dazed.
	   He said he and Green went to the scene after ``hearing a loud
thump and a horn blow. When I got there the bus was resting on its
side below the wooden bridge and it was burning.''
	   Berryhill said he called firemen and that ambulances arrived to
pick up the children.
	   AP-NR-12-17 1325EST<