The five-vehicle collision on Highway 59 South in Covington involved a Tipton County Board of Education school bus and sent seven people to the hospital, WREG reported. No students were aboard.
The collision occurred in front of the Covington Country Club. According to WREG, a vehicle had stopped on the highway to wait to turn into the golf course when the bus struck a vehicle in the line. The impact led to a chain reaction involving the other stopped vehicles, the station reported.
Emergency crews took all seven injured people to Regional One Health. One patient was listed in critical condition and the other six were reported stable, FOX13 Memphis reported, citing the Covington Police Department.
No Students Were Aboard the Bus
School officials went to the scene and are assisting investigators, WREG reported. The station did not specify the nature of their assistance.
Other Tennessee School Bus Crashes
A separate collision on State Highway 58 in Decatur, Meigs County, on October 27, 2020, involved a bus carrying 22 students and a utility truck. The National Transportation Safety Board reported that the bus driver and one student were fatally injured. In another incident, WSMV/Gray News reported that a Clarksville-Montgomery County school bus carrying 24 students and four teachers collided with a dump truck and an SUV on Highway 70 on March 27. These separate cases had different circumstances and outcomes from the Covington crash, where no students were aboard. They do not establish how common school-bus crashes are in Tennessee or how often they result in injuries. Sources: National Transportation Safety Board and WSMV/Gray News.
A separate Chattanooga crash
A school-bus crash in a residential area of Chattanooga on Nov. 21, 2016, killed six students and injured two dozen others, School Transportation News reported. These accounts describe individual incidents, not federal totals; they do not show how common school-bus-related crashes are or provide a breakdown of what those totals count.
The Covington Police Department and the Tennessee Highway Patrol are jointly investigating, according to WREG. The station reported that neither agency had released the drivers’ identities or determined a cause.
Highway 59 South Reopens FOX13 later reported that traffic was moving again on Highway 59 South. Police had asked drivers to avoid the area while crews worked, according to WREG. Anyone with information about the crash can contact the Covington Police Department at (901) 475-1261, send a tip via Facebook Messenger to the department, or reach out through the City of Covington's website.
Highway 59 South remained blocked in the aftermath of the wreck, and police asked drivers to avoid the area while crews worked the scene, per the same account. Anyone with information about the crash can contact the Covington Police Department at (901) 475-1261, submit tips via Facebook Messenger to the department, or reach out through the City of Covington's website.
