More than three dozen public school students escaped serious injury yesterday afternoon when their bus was broadsided by a dump truck at the intersection of Wai'alae and 9th avenues in Kaimuki.

Twelve students, ages 7 to 15, were examined at area hospitals and sent home, said Principal Charles Naumu of Anuenue School, a Hawaiian language immersion school in Palolo. They had bumps and bruises but no broken bones, he said.

Jason Kahaawi, who was driving the Pacific Isles Equipment Rental dump truck, said he was traveling diamond head on Wai'alae Avenue at about 10 mph and was just entering the intersection with 9th Avenue on a green light when the bus "appeared out of nowhere" from his left side. Officials at Ground Transport Inc., the bus owner and operator, declined to comment.

"It happened too quick — I never had time to react," a shaken Kahaawi said at the scene about an hour after the 1:50 p.m. collision.

The left front fender of Kahaawi's truck smashed into the front door on the passenger side of the bus, crushing it closed.

"I was kinda worried about the kids as soon as I realized it was one bus," said Kahaawi, 28, of 'Ewa Beach. "I've got three kids of my own — 7, 6 and the little one is just 2 — so my main concern was if the kids were all right."

He described Pacific Isles as a family-run business and said he has been a driver for the company "for quite a while now."

He estimated his truck was about one-quarter filled with about 3 1/2 tons of dirt. He said the traffic signal was green as he approached the intersection and had just shifted into third gear when the truck ran into the bus.

Had the truck been carrying a full load and had it been traveling faster, the outcome could have been much worse, Kahaawi said.

Emergency response workers said students told them the bus driver ran a red light.

PASSENGER'S VERSION

Lokelani Moepono-Techur, 8, and her sister Kanilehua, 7, said they were riding in the front of the bus — in the second or third row, they estimated.

"The bus driver was on the phone talking to another bus driver when she ran the red light," Lokelani said. She said the impact threw some of the children against the side of the bus, into the aisles and into the seats in front of them.

"One girl banged her head real hard and had a bloody nose," said Lokelani, who collapsed into the arms of her mother, Rena Techur, when she arrived at the scene.

Techur, a medical assistant at Pali Momi Medical Center, said she was at work when she got a call from Lokelani telling her the bus had crashed.

"She really couldn't say over the phone if she and her sister were OK," Techur said.

She said her heart was in her throat during the 20 minutes or so it took her to drive from 'Aiea to Kaimuki.

Mark Techur, Lokelani's dad, was working at a construction site in Makiki when he got word of the crash. He estimated it took him about 10 minutes to get to the collision site, although it seemed more like half an hour.

Techur hugged his two daughters and his niece and did what he could to console the girls.

The Techur family lives in Nanakuli and the two girls ride the Nanakuli-Wai'anae bus — the one involved in the collision —each way every day to Anuenue School's Hawaiian immersion program.

Principal Naumu was at a faculty meeting when he got word of the crash from a parent who called the school. He said he jumped into his compact pickup truck and arrived at the scene a few minutes later, hoping the accident "wouldn't be a bad one."

ANXIOUS MOMENTS

Firefighters and emergency medical technicians tended to students at a triage area set up in front of the Sun Tak Seafood Restaurant. Naumu collected the names of the injured and relayed them to the school office where staff fielded calls from anxious parents. Seven of the students were taken to Kapi'olani Medical Center, three went to Queen's and two to Straub Clinic and Hospital, Naumu said.

Another bus came to take students home, Naumu said. Robert Pedro, district chief for the city's Emergency Medical Services, said 41 children were on the bus.

"You look at the size of the truck and you look at the size of the bus; there were a lot of little children in the bus and (with) an impact like that they all go flying forward. We are lucky that we don't have critical or serious injuries," Pedro said.

'BODY ACHES, NECK PAIN'

None of the children complained of serious injuries, Pedro said. "They all had just body aches and neck pain. No gross blood, no gross injuries," he said.

"There was mass confusion in the beginning. So many children, they were all scared, they were all crying. You've got to go to each child and check them thoroughly. If they had any complaints, we take them to the hospital," Pedro said.

The bus driver, 64, reported having chest and neck pain and was taken to the hospital. Kahaawi said he was OK and declined treatment, Pedro said.

Leikula Gottlieb and two other girls, all 13 and Anuenue eighth-graders, were riding home on a city bus when Gottlieb got a call about the accident on her cell phone. The three got off the city bus at the next stop on Wai'alae Avenue. "We ran all the way over here to check on them," Gottlieb said.

Kenui Wahilai estimated they ran a mile and a half. "My friend, the window she was sitting at, it just broke. She didn't get hurt, just shocked," Wahilai said.

Kalei Kaawaloa also ran to the scene. "We saw little kids on the ground, ambulances and people crying. We are like family (at Anuenue)," she said.

Naumu said Ground Transport Inc. has provided bus service to the school for about 10 years without significant problems.

About 350 students from all areas of O'ahu attend the school in grades K-12.