A two-bus crash of Northeast elementary and high school students in Toomsuba caused minor injuries Friday afternoon, alarming parents.

“I’m so glad you’re OK,” Chris Creighton told his three sons, 9-year-old Christopher Jr., 8-year-old Conner and 6-year-old Cambron. Creighton told his sons about rushing to the scene from their house after he heard the fire trucks go by. 

“What was going through my mind? Well, I was just terrified,” Creighton said. “Just a thousand emotions going through my head. It’s funny, because I was calm up until I got here. Then I just kept asking and praying that they were OK … because they’re my boys.”

The three boys, all in elementary school and all uninjured, rode in a bus that was hit from behind around 3:15 p.m. by a bus of high school students near 6425 Russell Topton Road. Most of the injuries, ranging from twisted ankles to whiplash, seemed to happen to elementary students riding in the back of the first bus. 

“From my perspective, I was talking to my friend… and the bus was stopped to let a kid off,” Hana Eldridge, a 15-year-old ninth grader said. “Then the bus driver went full speed and into the (front) bus.”

Eldridge described the chaos, saying that phones flew onto the ground and people fell from their seats.

“It was crazy,” Eldridge said. “Everybody just started crying… a couple of people had their neck to the side and couldn’t move it. This one girl had her lip busted and her teeth in her hand.”

Ed Mosley, the Lauderdale County assistant superintendent, said that the most serious of the 10 injuries was a cracked tooth. 

“The buses were loaded,” Mosley said. “We sent four high school students to the hospital for checkups and six elementary school students.”

Approximately 80 students were involved in the crash. 

Deputies from the Lauderdale County Sheriff’s Department, paramedics from Metro Ambulance and volunteers from the Toomsuba Fire Service responded, reconnecting parents with their children, evaluating injuries and controlling the rush of traffic as parents raced to the scene. 

Parents pushed past deputies, running in tank tops and shorts in chilly weather to find their children, some swearing and upset when they couldn’t immediately find their children. Some students appeared shaken while others couldn’t wait to go home and play Minecraft.

First responders at the scene transferred uninjured students from the two buses to parents, who signed their children out, or placed them on another bus to go home. One bus, the one in the back, had to be towed from the scene and leaked fluid. 

“We will investigate and find out what happened,” Mosley said, adding that a drug test of the drivers would be mandatory. “That’s just our policy.”

Mosley said that the school hoped all the children would be OK.

“They’re our main concern,” Mosley said. “We want to make sure all of the children are safe, physically and mentally.”