Students uninjured in early morning wreck

Morgan Bowen, 15, a sophomore at Heritage High School was one of six students on a Rogers school bus which wrecked on Ventris Road Friday morning. Morgan took a photograph of the bus with her cell phone.
Morgan Bowen, 15, a sophomore at Heritage High School was one of six students on a Rogers school bus which wrecked on Ventris Road Friday morning. Morgan took a photograph of the bus with her cell phone.

— A school bus-pickup truck collision Friday morning left the bus leaning precariously over a steep hillside and the truck in flames, but thankfully nobody suffered injuries.

Parents led their children away from the bus in the cold morning air about 7 a.m. on Ventris Road just west of Arkansas Highway 127. They had been called by school personnel or their children who had cell phones.

“Two of us saw (the truck) coming, we felt it hit and it wobbled a bit until it stopped,” said Morgan Bowen, 15. Bowen was one of six students on the bus. She said she fell forward and then into the aisle before climbing back into her seat.

The students were safely removed from the bus through the rear emergency exit. The bus was leaning to the right, trees blocking further descent down the steep hillside.

The driver of the 1997 Dodge Ram pickup truck was Martha Harwick, 50, of Garfield - a Rogers Heritage High School teacher. Her truck burst into flames. Firefighters from the Northeast Benton County Volunteer Fire Department put out the fire.

The truck was destroyed.

Harwick, who declined ambulance transport, was driven home by a deputy.

The bus driver, Anne Schaffner, 65, of Garfield, told Benton County Sheriff’s deputies she rounded a corner and saw the oncoming truck, but was unable to avoid the collision.

Don Sutterfield, Rogers school district operations manager, said the students’ parents were notified and the children were released to their parents.

“We’ll notify the school nurses to be aware of this and to check the students,” Sutterfield said.

According to the report, the bus had just pulled off Wilson Road onto Ventris Road.

Harwick was cited for driving left of center.

Community, Pages 6 on 02/24/2010