A teacher and student on a school field trip were killed Thursday when a
school bus collided with a dump truck and flipped over in
Mount Olive Township in
Morris County,
New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy said.
More than 40 others were injured, some critically, and were taken to local hospitals, Murphy told reporters. The names of the teacher and student killed were not released.
Mount Olive Mayor Rob Greenbaum, who saw the aftermath of the highway crash from an overpass, described the scene as "horrific." He told HLN on Thursday there were possible ejections in the crash.
The bus was transporting students from East Brook Middle School in Paramus, New Jersey, according to a school official.
Two other buses from the same school were also on a trip to Waterloo Village, a restored 19th-century town.
"Everybody's trying to make sense of this," Murphy said.
Jay Faltings, who drove past the scene about five minutes after the crash, told HLN he saw children being rescued from the wreckage.
Faltings said the front of the dump truck appeared to have been sheared off and the school bus was "ripped off its frame" after hitting a guardrail and flipping over.
"It's like nothing you've ever seen before," he said.
Faltings said first responders appeared to have removed the children from the scene.
"They were young kids," he said. "But luckily, first responders, everybody there helped get all the kids out safely from what we could see. ... The kids were obviously freaked out."
Emergency personnel work at the scene of a school bus and dump truck collision on Interstate 80 in Mount Olive Township, New Jersey.
The cause of the
accident is under investigation and officials would not provide any additional information.
The National Transportation Safety Board said via Twitter that it was "gathering information" on the crash.
All lanes of Interstate 80 have been shut down.
Mount Olive Township is about 50 miles west of New York City.