Person critically hurt in crash of school bus, SUV

CROWN POINT, Ind. (WISH) — An SUV driver was critically injured Thursday morning in a head-on crash with a school bus in Lake County near the city of Crown Point, the sheriff says.

The Crown Point Community Schools bus only had the driver and a bus monitor aboard. The bus driver was taken to a medical facility for an evaluation. The bus monitor was checked at the crash scene and later released.

An news alert from Sheriff Oscar Martinez Jr. on the Lake County Sheriff’s Office app did not provide the names of the people involved in the crash.

Police officers were called about 8:30 a.m. Thursday to the crash in the 3300 block of West 133rd Avenue. That’s about a mile west of the avenue’s intersection with State Road 55.

Investigators think the bus was going west on 133rd Avenue when it veered off the road to the north, hit a mailbox, overcorrected to the left of the centerline, and then went into the path of the Ford Edge SUV. The driver of the Ford tried to avoid crashing, but both vehicles collided head-on, investigators found.

The sheriff says the crash investigation was continuing Thursday afternoon.

Lake County sits on Indiana’s northwest corner along Lake Michigan.