Multiple people were killed in a school bus crash in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on Monday, Assistant Police Chief Tracy Arnold said.
The bus was carrying 35 children ranging in age from kindergarten to fifth grade. It wasn’t immediately clear if children were among the dead. Arnold could not provide a specific number of people killed, saying only “multiple fatalities” occurred.
The bus appears to have slammed into a tree, which split it apart.
At least 23 people were transported to local hospitals after the single-vehicle crash.
Chattanooga Police Chief Fred Fletcher said bus was carrying students from Woodmore Elementary on Tally Road when it crashed, CNN-affiliate WDEF reported.
“A bus crash involving schoolchildren is every public safety professional’s worst nightmare but it’s also the thing that we all train for,” Fletcher said, according to CNN-affiliate WTVC.
The bus driver is cooperative and talking to investigators, police said.
A tweet from the Chattanooga Fire Department showed the bus on its side and up against a tree as emergency officials extricated the last patient through the back door.
WTVC reported that lines of donors stretched out the door of the Chattanooga Blood Assurance, the local blood bank, which extended its hours Monday night because of the bus crash.