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Teen driver in stable condition after hitting school bus

COLUMBUS, Ind. (The Republic) – A teenage female driver was in stable condition Saturday morning after sustaining serious injuries from rear-ending a Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. bus on Gladstone Avenue.

Columbus police and firefighters were sent to Gladstone Avenue and 15th Street at 3:46 p.m. Friday on a report of a car under a school bus, firefighters said.

Daniel Rea, and his son Eli, 14, were traveling behind the school bus, and the late-model maroon Mazda when they heard a loud crash and realized the Mazda had gone under the school bus.

“She didn’t even stop,” Daniel Rea said of the car driving under the bus’ back bumper. “We pulled over and the cops got here really quick. It was horrible. It just froze me. It was devastating to see this.”

The driver was identified as Lynley Arnhold, 16, of Columbus, who was listed in stable condition as of 9:30 a.m. Saturday at IU Health Methodist Hospital.

Eight students were on the bus but were not injured in the collision, said Lt. Matt Harris, Columbus Police Department spokesman. The students were taken by another bus from the crash scene and school officials did not allow media to speak with them.

Before one student left the scene on the replacement bus, he did say that his bus, Bus 140, was stopping at 15th Street where it normally allows two students to get off when the collision occurred. Police were taking a statement from the unidentified bus driver at the scene.

Columbus firefighters extricated the woman from the car, which had Bartholomew County plates, and she was moved to a Columbus Regional Hospital ambulance and then to the Lifeline helicopter, which landed on the Greenbelt Golf Course.