Students Grieve for 4 Killed in Crash

NEWTON, Mass. —  School started out much as always Friday at Oak Hill Middle School.

But by the time students had filed into their homerooms and learned that four members of the school band had been killed in a bus crash in New Brunswick, Canada, earlier that morning, it was clear that very little would be proceeding as usual.

Grief counselors converged on the red brick building in this affluent Boston suburb. Mental health clinicians walked the halls. A mother who had raced to the school soon after hearing of the tragedy said that the 10- to 14-year-old students were throwing their arms around her, just wanting the safety of a hug.

“The kids have been, obviously, tremendously upset,” said Dr. Michael Jellinek, a child psychiatrist called to the scene. “It is a time of their lives when friendship matters a tremendous amount--and these were their friends.”

Forty students, ages 12 and 13, and five adult chaperons left Newton late Thursday, bound for a music festival near Halifax in Nova Scotia. Authorities said all the students were sleeping when the bus skidded off a highway exit in the predawn hours, flipping at least once.

Two girls and two boys were killed--including one who was trapped under the bus--according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Thirty-six others on the bus were treated at hospitals. By Friday afternoon, most had been released.

“Danny had a close friend on the bus,” said Nalya Groob, standing close to her sixth-grader. “He’s OK, we know he’s OK--although he did break his arm.”

The bus overturned on a ramp on the Trans-Canada Highway near Sussex, New Brunswick. Weather conditions did not appear to be a factor, according to authorities at the site.

Oak Hill Principal Marvin Shapiro said the students had been scheduled to participate in a joint concert Friday night with Canadian students.

They “were really excited about the trip,” said 13-year-old Dan Hodges, a seventh-grader at Oak Hill. Hodges said he knew all four of the dead children.

“I’m mainly in shock,” he said. “I think that’s the way we’re all feeling right now.”

School officials began handling the crisis first thing Friday. In addition to the brigade of social workers and grief counselors, clergy members set up shop around campus. To keep unwanted visitors from entering the school, police officers lined the street outside. At the close of school Friday, traffic clogged the road as parents converged to escort their children home.

“When I heard the news this morning, I fell to the floor,” said Patty Sharpe, who is the mother of an eighth-grader named Ben.

“The first thing I thought was: ‘Oh my God, all those parents.’ Then there was that little part of me that said: ‘Thank God I’m not one of them.’ ”

Sharpe said the parents of the dead children were informed of the accident before anyone else from the school was told. Despite the best efforts of school officials, she said, word leaked out “bit by bit, way before the children were supposed to be told.”

Many were confused, Sharpe said, “and they were all pretty much devastated.”

At a meeting Friday, she said, “the parents were literally clutching each other.”

Leaving school, a 13-year-old who gave his name only as Bryan said he knew two of the victims well.

“I haven’t shown it, but I really miss them already,” Bryan said.

His friend Yavni, 14, also did not want his last name used. Yavni said it was a tough day for Oak Hill Middle School.

“My only problem is, I wish I could do something to help them, the people who are hurting here,” the teenager said.