Patrol IDs driver who allegedly ran stop sign, hit school bus on Iron Range

All 21 children on the bus suffered minor injuries, the State Patrol said. They all climbed out of the bus on their own, according to Hibbing police.

The Minnesota Star Tribune
September 13, 2024 at 6:01PM
An SUV driver collided with a school bus Thursday on the Iron Range. (Friends of the Northland FireWire)

The State Patrol has identified the motorist whose SUV hit a school bus taking kids to their Iron Range school Thursday morning.

The patrol said 19-year-old Svea Lynn Snickers of Alborn, Minn., ran a stop sign at the intersection and hit the bus as it headed north on Hwy. 5. Snickers’s injuries were initially described by the patrol as life-threatening. Her condition has since been upgraded to good, according to a spokesman for Essentia Health Hospital in Duluth.

The collision occurred just east of Hibbing about 7:50 a.m. Thursday at the intersection of Hwy. 5 and Town Line Road, according to the patrol.

All 21 children heading to Cherry School suffered minor injuries when the bus flipped over about 7 miles southwest of its destination, the patrol said. The school serves about 600 students from prekindergarten through 12th grade, and students of all ages were on the bus, said St. Louis County Schools Superintendent Reggie Engebritson.

A witness told Hibbing police that students were able to crawl out of the bus on their own.

Snickers was extricated from the wreckage by emergency responders and taken by air ambulance to Essentia Hospital in nearby Virginia before being moved to a sister hospital in Duluth.

The bus driver, 52-year-old Shawn Allen Lindula of Iron, Minn., was expected to survive his injuries.

Jana Hollingsworth contributed to this report.

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Paul Walsh

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