Students fall out of a bus

Two students from the Clarke County School District's punitive alternative school were injured Thursday when a school bus door popped open during a fight and they fell onto Whit Davis Road.

The two students, both between the ages of 13 and 15, fell to the pavement through the emergency door, knocking one unconscious and possibly breaking the other's leg, according to Trooper Alan Williams of the Georgia State Patrol's Athens post.

The bus driver, Roy Faust, already had separated the two students once, putting them on opposite ends of the bus, Williams said.

Faust was stopping the bus in the 700 block of Whit Davis Road about 4 p.m. when the fight erupted again.

"At some point during the second fight, as they were fighting with each other, that back door opened up, and that's when they fell out the back of the bus," Williams said.

Faust had slowed to 10 to 15 mph and was traveling north on Whit Davis Road about half a mile south of Lexington Road when the students fell into the street, he said.

One youngster lay on the pavement and a second landed in a ditch, said a neighbor who came outside to comfort one of the students.

The students were taken by ambulance to Athens Regional Medical Center.

Williams said he inspected the bus door, which had functioned properly.

Other student passengers, milling around outside after the fall, boarded the bus and were taken home by a different driver after the trooper determined that the door latch was safe.

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