In a budget meeting Tuesday with the Selma City School System, director of operations Ray Mathiews, announced a minor bus crash that occurred on Wednesday, Aug. 22.

“This happened at about 4:10 p.m. in the afternoon,” Mathiews said. “[The driver] was pulling the school bus into yard and we think he had some type of stroke or seizure and he had a major attack. His blood sugar was over 500 when they took him to the hospital.”

Mathiews said he is extremely grateful that this was an empty bus with no children around it when its driver, Oliver Waters, had a seizure and was unable to completely stop the bus.

“I would like to commend the driver,” Mathiews said. “He did a good job bringing the bus to a stop and keeping it under control and avoiding hurting anybody.”

He said that Waters is an experienced driver that has an excellent safety record and even passed all of his physical examinations that are now required by state law before the start of every school year.

Mathiews also wanted to comment that he and others in the school system are keeping Waters in their prayers for a fast recovery.

“[Waters] only suffered a minor cut on his leg that was caused by the accident, it was a seizure that caused him the accident and caused him to be hospitalized,” he said.

At the time of the accident, the bus yard at the School of Discovery was empty of children and faculty members. Waters had an attack, lost control and turned the bus in a circle in the bus yard damaging the metal gate.

The bus, after damaging the gate, hit a cinder block retaining wall and a small portion of the actual SOD building.

“The building is not damaged, just the cinder block wall and gate to the bus lot,” Mathiews said. “I’m going to do everything we can to make sure that that bus is not totaled because it’s a good bus and we need that bus. As long as it can operate safely and not give us problems down the road, I hope its not totaled.”