A school bus carrying students failed to make it up a hill in Bolton on Friday morning and then collided with two vehicles before sliding down an embankment and ending up in a ravine.

The incident happened on Humber Lea Road between King Street East and Kingsview Drive at around 8:15 a.m.

Ontario Provincial Police Const. Tamara Schubert says that no injuries were reported as a result of the crash.

“The preliminary investigation reveals that a school bus was attempting to travel northbound up Humber Lea Road when it started to travel southbound,” she said. “Some vehicles did manage to maneuver out of the way but unfortunately the bus did strike a Jeep and then subsequently struck a Ford, which then struck a tree. The bus then made secondary contact with the Ford prior to going into the river.”

Student says bus just stopped working

The bus was carrying 17 high school students at the time of the crash, which took place a short distance away from Humberview Secondary School.

Grade 11 student Cindy Reoux described the incident as a “scary” ordeal.

She said that the bus was going up the hill when it suddenly “stopped working” and began “banging into vehicles”

Once the bus ended up in the ravine, she said that those on board all had to climb out the emergency exit located at the side of the vehicle, as another emergency exit at the back was underwater.

She said the driver of one of the vehicles involved in the collision helped pull many of the students out of the bus. She said that a fellow student also helped open the emergency exit and assisted some of the students as they climbed out.

“It was really scary. Everyone had a panic attack a little bit right after we got out and a lot of kids were crying. We were all shook by it,” she said.

Bus to undergo mechanical inspection

Reoux said the driver of the bus had only been transporting students on that particular route for the last three days.

Though the cause of the collision is still unclear, Schubert said that bus will be taken to Brampton where a commercial vehicle inspector will assess whether there may have been some sort of mechanical failure.

One man who was driving behind the bus said the vehicle came to a sudden stop midway up the hill. He said that he managed to move his vehicle out of the way before getting hit by the bus but he said that other drivers were not as lucky.

“It was actually pretty crazy. I have never seen something like that before,” Vince Facchini told CP24. “It was just stunning. I was stopped and looking at it go down the hill, just taking everything with it.”

Facchini said that about three people, himself included, helped the students get off the bus.

“Some of them were shocked and crying but everybody got off OK. I don’t think there were any broken bones or even a scratch,” he said.