Freshman Killed by Bus at UIUC

[wrigley]

It sounds like the driver was at fault from this story.

Bus kills U. of I. student from Deerfield

By Courtney Flynn
Tribune staff reporter
Published October 1, 2005

A Deerfield teenager who recently began her freshman year at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign died of injuries after she was struck by a bus while crossing a street on campus, officials said Friday.

Sarah Channick, 18, was walking west across 6th Street about 4:30 p.m. Thursday when a bus turning south onto 6th from Chalmers Street hit her, Champaign police said.

Channick was taken to Carle Foundation Hospital in Champaign, where she died about 5 p.m. of multiple traumatic injuries, police and Champaign County Coroner Duane Northrup's office said.

"I could just see in the last month she was so full of optimism, so excited about her future," said her father, Robert, a freelance writer who frequently contributes to the Tribune. "It's all gone in a minute."

The driver of the Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District bus, Demetra Young, 22, of Urbana was issued a traffic citation for failing to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk, police said.

She also was taken to Carle Hospital because she was very upset, said Tom Costello, a spokesman for the transit agency.

She was not injured and was released Friday, he said.

Young was new on the job, recently finishing eight weeks of training as a bus driver, Costello said.

She had been driving buses on her own for about three weeks, he said. He did not know if she had any previous experience driving buses.

"This is certainly a nightmare for the family and a nightmare for us," Costello said. "We really do treasure our students ... and when parents send them down here we want them to be safe."