New video shows Pasco school bus crash

LAND O' LAKES (FOX 13) - Pasco County Schools has released surveillance video Thursday from inside a school bus as it was struck by a semi-truck earlier this week.

The video shows the moment of impact from two different angles. A small child was sitting in the front of the school bus, but was buckled into a car seat. Linda Cobbe, a Pasco County Schools spokesperson, said all five kids on the bus were wearing seat belts or harnesses.

The bus driver's assistant, however, can be seen being thrown from her seat, and appears to have hit her head before she gets up to check on the other children in the bus. 

"The children didn't move hardly at all with the impact. Only the assistant was thrown out of her seat because she wasn't wearing one," Cobbe said. "You couldn't be on a more safe mode of travel. School buses are probably the safest way to travel especially when you're wearing the seat belts."

The crash happened Tuesday just before 5 p.m. on State Road 52 at the Interstate 75 overpass as the bus was dropping children off from Watergrass Elementary School in Wesley Chapel. No one on the bus was seriously hurt.

One of the children on the bus told FOX 13 she's glad she was wearing her seat belt.

"I was glad I didn't get hurt because if I got hurt, I'd be crying a lot and going to the hospital. My mom would be upset too," said 9-year-old Dayanara Aguilar whose brother was also on the bus and was uninjured.

Forty-eight hours after the crash, Dayanara's mother was more emotional than her kids.

"I'm so afraid. I can't stop crying," Adriana Aguilar said. "It's hard to me. It's my kids. It's my life."

The surveillance cameras also recorded a Good Samaritan in a FedEx shirt boarding the bus to try to help those on board. Cobbe called him a "hero" and said the district wants to identify him so they can thank him.