Students, drivers and motorist's son all unhurt

By the Gazette-Times

A Corvallis man and his young son were taken to the hospital Thursday after their car was rear-ended by a school bus. Clay Martin and his 7-year-old son, Jake, were taken to Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center for evaluation and were released in the early evening.

Martin was headed east in the 1300 block of Northwest Circle Boulevard around 2:45 p.m. when his compact station wagon was rear-ended by a bus driven by Amy McDonald of Albany, said Sgt. Jim Crain of the Corvallis Police Department.

No citations were issued at the scene.

"It's still under investigation at this time," Crain said.

The bus was taking four life skills students home from Jefferson Elementary School at the time of the crash. Neither the students nor the driver was injured in the collision.

"Everybody's fine," said Brian Maxwell, a manager with First Student Inc., which provides transportation services to the Corvallis School District.

Life skills teachers from Jefferson Elementary waited with the students until their parents could pick them up or another bus arrived to take them home.

The bus suffered only minor front-end damage, but the back end of the station wagon was badly crumpled by the impact.

Corvallis police officers routed traffic around the accident scene for about half an hour until the station wagon could be towed away. Circle Boulevard was reopened to traffic about 3:20 p.m.

It was the second time in a little over a week that a First Student school bus was involved in an accident in Benton County.

On May 7, a First Student bus was struck by an unloaded log truck on Highway 20 west of Philomath after dropping off a load of kids at Kings Valley Charter School. Both drivers were taken to Good Samaritan with back pain, and the log truck driver was cited for failure to yield.