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Granite School District is still investigating how a 17-year-old special-needs student was able to fall from a moving school bus on Monday while he was in the care of a bus driver and an attendant.
Despite falling onto Interstate 80 after he opened the emergency door at the back of the bus, the boy, an incoming sophomore at Skyline High, is doing "really well," Granite spokesman Ben Horsley said Tuesday.
"He has stitches in his head and multiple lacerations on his body," Horsley said, but no internal injuries nor broken bones. The teen, who attended Evergreen Junior High last year, has been at Primary Children's Medical Center since the accident and is expected to be released soon. He has been kept for observation because he has been playing with or removing his bandages, Horsley said.
Utah Highway Patrol investigated the bus and found that the mechanical parts, including the emergency door and a sensor that sounded an alarm when it opened, are in "good shape," said Cpl. Todd Johnson. He does not expect any traffic citations to be issued in the incident.
Granite is not considering changes to bus equipment or to transportation policies, Horsley said. Attendants ride with special-education students and often sit in the middle of the bus where they can most easily reach both the front and back of the vehicle.
The student who opened the door was sitting in the rear of the bus. Between 60 and 90 seconds passed between the time he jumped or fell and the time that the bus pulled over. Initially, the driver and attendant did not hear the alarm because of noise from open windows and the freeway.
"The reality is, we do have procedures and guidelines in place to prevent something like this from occurring," Horsley said. "Part of our ongoing investigation is determining how the employees were performing those responsibilities."
Both employees have been placed on leave during the investigation.
The bus was carrying six students home from the first day of a four-week summer program at the special-education Hartvigsen School in South Salt Lake.
A driver who was behind the bus called 911 to report the teen had fallen into the road.
"We were right in back of him, thankfully far enough," the driver said in the 911 call. "He opened the back door of the bus and tumbled out."