A toddler is back home recovering after a school van struck her yesterday. We have more on how it happened.
Cecilia MacDonald, 2, was happy and waving just one day after a terrifying incident by her home.
It was just after her sister with Down’s syndrome arrived home from school at IU9 in St. Marys.
“My wife went to get Beatrice out of the car. She has has to take her out of the car seat. And, in the interim, I think Cecilia just kind of got back around,” says father Sam MacDonald.
The father got an urgent call to come home after the van hit little Cecilia in their driveway on Monday afternoon.
“Just sort of pushed her over and dragged her a little bit. So, very traumatic. We got sent down to Pittsburgh, but we got a clean bill of health and we got sent back home last night,” says MacDonald.
A woman from the bus company says a vehicle with a yellow “School Students/IU9” placard on top is not the actual van involved, and wouldn’t say where the correct van is.
MacDonald says neighbors helped tend to his six other kids while he went to the hospital.
“We feel like we’re very blessed. We feel like we live in a great neighborhood. My neighbor witnessed the event, he’s a volunteer fireman, and came and got her out from underneath the car and made sure the driver stopped,” says MacDonald.
He says the van pulls into their driveway in part because of aggressive drivers on East Avenue who try to get around it, and wants people to watch out for school vans, buses, and students.
In the meantime, he’s just glad Cecilia only had cuts and scrapes.
“She’s eat up a little bit and she didn’t like having her neck brace on, but she’s OK,” says MacDonald.
MacDonald is the president of Elk County Catholic schools. That’s the school an 11-year-old girl was heading home from 12 days ago when she was struck by a car near her school bus in St. Marys.
MacDonald says that girl is doing better and is now back in school.
