School bus crash shows need for child wristband IDs

Sunday, October 27, 2002

ASSOCIATED PRESS
TOLEDO, Ohio - Emergency workers who tended injured victims at the chaotic scene of a school bus crash have proposed that children on field trips wear wristbands with identifying information. School officials in Michigan and northwest Ohio said that sounds like a good idea.

At least 48 children and adults were injured Oct. 10 when the bus collided with a tractor-trailer loaded with 38 tons of steel coils in Erie Township, Mich., about 10 miles north of Toledo.

But firefighters and paramedics had only a list of children on the bus, and there weren’t enough uninjured adults to accompany each child to a hospital.

“We didn’t know who they were or where they went,” said Larry Merkle, chief of the Monroe Charter Township Fire Department. “It was just a mess.”

So the department’s fire inspector, Lt. Calvin Schmitt, presented the wristband idea last week to superintendents of Monroe County’s 10 school districts.

“All you need is that little band,” Merkle said, adding the bands are removed easily after a trip.

The bus was carrying students and chaperones from Pierre Toussaint Academy in Detroit to a field trip at an apple orchard. A lawsuit against the school, bus driver, trucking company and others has been filed by 21 of the victims.

Don Spencer, superintendent of the Monroe County Intermediate School District, said school officials will discuss the wristband idea with principals and transportation staff.

Gary Sautter, assistant to the chief business officer of Toledo Public Schools, will present the wristband idea at a meeting of transportation personnel next week.

Organizers of field trips in the Toledo schools keep a list of those going, including chaperones.

Even so, it’s difficult to track which child goes to which hospital in case of an accident, Sautter said. “This is a great way.”