Note: This story has been updated to reflect the correct name of the child and with added information from the Georgia State Patrol..
Eli Bradley, 12, a William James Middle School student, died after being struck by a car Wednesday morning within sight of other children on a Bulloch County Schools bus.
The accident occurred minutes after 7 a.m. at an entrance to Stillwater subdivision, Stillwater Drive, from Maria Sorrell Road. Bulloch County sheriff’s deputies and the Emergency Medical Service responded to the 911 callout, and the Georgia State Patrol was dispatched at 7:12 a.m.
Bulloch County Coroner Jake Futch released the child’s name later in the morning after family members were notified. An EMS ambulance had transported Bradley to East Georgia Regional Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 7:50 a.m.
The child had been with his mother, waiting for the bus, when it stopped and he ran toward it into the street and was hit by a white sedan, said Georgia State Patrol Sgt. Robbie Scott of Post 45, Statesboro.
“He assumed that the bus was stopping to pick him up, and he was wrong,” Scott said. “The bus was only stopping to make a left turn, which the bus driver tells me she does all the time, she never picks up kids in the middle of Maria Sorrell, she always turns into the subdivision.”
The car was headed north. The bus was southbound, and because it was stopping to make a turn rather than to pick children up, had “no (flashing) lights on, no guard out,” the GSP sergeant said. “The bus was just stopped, yielding to traffic, waiting to make a left turn onto Stillwater Drive.”
The Georgia State Patrol assigned a Specialized Collision Reconstruction Team, or SCRT, to investigate further.
No charges have been filed at this point, and the State Patrol was not naming either driver, both of whom were cooperating in the investigation. The driver of the car consented to a voluntary blood draw soon after the accident to rule out any impairment, and investigating troopers will look at video obtained from the school bus through the cooperation of the school system, Scott said.
They may use the video to help calculate the speed of the car and will also obtain data from the car’s onboard computer, he said.
Schools’ response
The school bus itself was not involved in the accident, and the bus driver is cooperating fully, said Hayley Greene, the Bulloch County Schools public relations director. She further noted that the location where the tragedy occurred was not a bus stop.
As standard practice, the school district does not publicly identify by name, or by school if off-campus, students who die or are injured in accidents. But with that information already made public by other sources, Greene spoke of the school system’s response.
“We always hurt and grieve when a child is lost,” she said. “Our crisis and counseling teams were activated, and we are providing administrative and counseling support for students, staff and faculty at Mattie Lively (Elementary School) and William James because the students that were on the bus that witnessed the accident were involved with those two schools.”