ADAMS TWP — During the Mars Area school board’s Tuesday, March 11, meeting, superintendent Mark Gross credited the community and first responders for their handling of a school bus crash that injured the driver and multiple students.

The crash occurred near 1619 Three Degree Road around 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, March 6. Seven students and the bus driver were transported to area hospitals after the bus crashed into a tree.

By Thursday afternoon, all seven students were confirmed to have been discharged. At Tuesday night’s board meeting, Gross said the driver, who at the time was transported to Allegheny General Hospital, was still recovering.

When the initial call for the crash came in, a mass-casualty incident was declared by Callery Volunteer Fire Department to get EMS units to the scene more quickly because of the number of potential injuries.

“We had a bus accident that was a very harrowing experience, something that you would never, ever anticipate,” Gross said. “As a superintendent, when you hear the initial alerts of ‘mass casualty incident,’ your brain races. I would just like to thank the community, and give a very heartfelt thanks to the first responders, all of those who’s natural reaction was to go and assist at the scene.

“At this time I won’t comment much more on the accident itself other than, it just serves as another reminder that these things happen. That’s the nature of reality, and it makes you realize how precious life is and how quickly that can change,” Gross said. “So unfortunately, we had some students that were injured. My thoughts and prayers continue to be with them as they recover. Good news is that it sounds like they’re well on their way to that. And our thoughts and prayers continue to be with driver, who continues to recover with his situation.”

Gross in particular thanked Richard Glosser, director of student services at Mars, who Gross said helped get additional help with counseling for the students following the crash.

Gross said the community was largely to thank for supporting those affected by the crash.

“On that day we had numerous administrators report, in addition to EMS and fire and police, and I can’t say enough about having them there and the support they’ve shown in such a situation. It shows you what type of community we have,” Gross said. “Also, we had individuals there who stopped whatever they were doing and offered help. We had churches reaching out. It was such a scary place to be for all of us and I can only imagine the parents who have been dealing with that, trying to communicate as quickly as possible.”

Matthew Duff, a school board member, said hearing about the students on the bus helping each other shows how strong the Mars community is.

“There are stories about kids helping other kids get off the bus, making sure they’re OK, so that was awesome to hear,” Duff said. “There’s the community, and the first responders, but then there’s the kids themselves. Imagine being that young and being by yourself for 20, 30 seconds and to have another student, an older kid or your seatmate check on you.”