(The following report by Kerry Kinsey appeared on the ABC 4 News website in Salt Lake City on November 8.)
KAYSVILLE, Utah — A school bus was caught at a railroad crossing on 200 North while a speeding train approached.
Chris Williams of the Davis School District refers to the incident Thursday morning, “If it wasn’t for those construction workers we may have been talking about bodies, you know fatalities.”
Williams says the bus with many kids aboard was headed to Fairfield Junior High. Williams says, “He got in the middle of the tracks. He was stopped by the arm on the east and he basically froze as far as we can tell.”
Williams says both arms at the railroad crossing had trapped the driver. He says construction workers nearby yelled at the bus driver and finally got him to break one of the railroad crossing arms and continue through the intersection as a train approached.
The broken arm on the railroad crossing has since been repaired. However, nerves are still frazzled for some of the kids on the bus.
Lisa Krage says, “He was ready to jump out the window because it was real scary.”
Krage is talking about her 13-year-old son Cody. She says he was on the bus and after the incident, he called her. Krage says, “So I came down and talked to one of the workers. The worker told me what had happened. How he saw it and he said that driver almost killed the kids.”
Chris Williams says, “We avoided a big disaster.”
The school district identified the driver as Johney Katich. Nobody answered the door when we went to his home in Layton. Katich didn’t return our phone call Thursday night.
The district says Katich has been put on administrative leave while they investigate the matter. The district says he’s been driving for them for at least ten years.
The railroad crossing arm did crack the windshield of the bus. Nobody was injured in the incident and the students were later dropped off at the school.