Kids Hit by 70-Year-Old Driver Near Middle School

BELMONT, Calif. (AP) — A sport-utility vehicle jumped a curb outside a middle school Wednesday afternoon, plowed into a group of children waiting for a bus and rammed into a tree, trapping several students underneath, police said.

Five to seven children were hit, and the others hospitalized were injured or shaken up as they tried to escape the oncoming car, DeSmidt said.

The male driver of the SUV was at the school in Belmont, about 25 miles south of San Francisco, to pick up a student, DeSmidt said. He did not know the driver's relationship to the child.

The Honda was registered to Mauro H. Yan and Lorenza Y. Yan, of Redwood Shores, according to the Department of Motor Vehicles.

A woman who identified herself as Mauro Yan's wife but would not give her name told the San Francisco Chronicle that her 70-year-old husband was driving, and that he thought the SUV's brakes had failed.

At the scene, investigators combed through debris, including the SUV's front grill and discarded sneakers and backpacks. They noted the absence of skid marks that would have indicated the driver tried to stop, but said it was too soon to draw conclusions about what that meant.

The crash occurred about 12:30 p.m., at the end of a school day shortened because of standardized testing, Principal Maggie O'Reilly said. School will open as usual on Thursday, but the state tests are canceled for the remainder of the week, she said.

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