A Florida school bus driver has been charged after a shocking video captured young children screaming in horror after a train clipped their bus at a railroad crossing.
Yvonne Hampton, 67, drove across tracks in Sumter County on Thursday while allegedly saying she was “not gonna stop for no train.”
The train then clipped the rear corner of her bus, which had 29 children and two adults on board, according to a police report obtained by News 6.
Incredibly, nobody was injured — but a dramatic clip posted on TikTok shows traumatized kids freaking out as the train speeds behind them, just inches away from the back of the bus.
“A matter of 6 inches is the difference in all of this, and it could have been an extremely catastrophic situation,” Sumter County School District Superintendent Logan Brown said in a video statement.
Hampton was fired the same day as the crash and on Monday was slapped with 29 counts of felony child neglect and failing to stop at a railroad crossing.
Witness Christina Armstrong said she saw the bus erupt into panic when it was hit by the train in Bushnell, about 50 miles northwest of Orlando.
“The bus had stopped before the tracks, and then it started to go. A car had changed into the other lane, by the looks of it … I saw the bus pull forward, but not enough,” she said.
“I wanted to cry. I immediately started to pray afterward because it was a lot,” Armstrong added.
One student who was on the bus told News 6 she was “terrified, because all I could see was the train hitting the bus.”
Superintendent Brown praised the train conductor’s response, calling him “a hero in this situation.”
Hampton had worked for the district for more than a decade until she was fired after the incident. She was being held without bond at the Sumter County Jail, records show.
The district has since made changes to its bus routes, including immediately removing the crossing where the crash occurred, and is reviewing its driver-hiring process.
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