It wasn’t a good day for garbage trucks. Two of them crashed, causing chaos on the roads
Miami-Dade and Broward County saw crashes involving a garbage truck within hours of each other Thursday. One involved a school bus, the other a car.
The first crash happened shortly before 4 a.m. along Northwest 64th Avenue and West Commercial Boulevard in Lauderhill, shutting down the road for seven hours.
Based on the initial investigation, a car was traveling east when it collided with a Republic Waste Management truck as it was making a left turn, said Lt. Michael Santiago, spokesman for Lauderhill police.
The driver of the car is in serious condition and was taken to Broward Health Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale.
The second crash happened at about 6:30 a.m. in Liberty City at the intersection of Northwest 12th Avenue and 67th Street, a few blocks from Miami Northwestern Senior High School. A 10-block stretch of Northwest 12th Avenue were shut down during the rescue and investigation.
Detectives say the Miami-Dade County Public School bus was traveling north when it collided with the right rear side of the garbage truck, which was reversing out of Holmes Elementary School. No children were inside the bus, but fire-rescue crews had to use the Jaws of Life to remove a trapped school bus aide.
The 45-year-old was pinned inside the bus and injured his legs, according to police. He was taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital as a trauma alert and is said to be in “critical but stable condition,” as of Thursday afternoon.
The female bus driver was taken to North Shore Hospital for minor injuries and is expected to be OK. The workers inside the garbage truck were not injured.
Both garbage trucks were owned by private companies.
This is the second serious school bus-related crash to occur in Miami-Dade this month. On Sept. 6, a small private school bus was left overturned after colliding with a car on Miller Road and Southwest 142nd Avenue.
One student was extracted from the van by Miami-Dade Fire Rescue and taken as a trauma alert to Kendall Regional, according to a police spokesman. The bus driver and another student were taken to the same hospital with minor injuries.
The identities of the victims in Thursday’s accidents have not been released. The cause of the crashes are under investigation.
