2 Dead, 8 Hurt After Wrong-Way Truck Hits Illinois School Bus Head-On

Two adults were killed and eight students were hurt after a tractor trailer truck driving the wrong way on an Illinois highway struck a school bus carrying a high school girls basketball team Wednesday night.

The driver of the truck and an adult volunteer on the bus were killed in the Bloomington, Illinois, crash, according to the Bloomington Pantagraph.

The team was from Normal Community West High School in nearby Normal, Illinois. The students were reportedly driving back from a game at another high school shortly before 8:30 p.m. when the truck hit the bus head-on on Interstate 74. A total of 11 people were on the bus at the time of the crash, according to the Peoria Journal Star.

Eight girls and the coach taken to area hospitals, where they were treated for non-life-threatening injuries.

The identity of the truck driver, who is reportedly a 34-year-old Iowa man, has not yet been released, pending family notification.

The school district identified the deceased bus passenger as Charlie Crabtree, a 72-year-old volunteer accompanying the girls.

The school district announced the crash on social media Wednesday. Several people fondly remembered Crabtree online as a kind soul.

Pamela Rice, who said that Crabtree was a bus driver who had driven her son during summer school, wrote, “He was the kindest, sweetest, and most gentle bus driver I had ever known, always had a smile on his face!”