LONG ISLAND, NY -- A bus driver faces a battery of charges after police found he was drunk at the wheel of a school bus that crashed into a local home Wednesday.
Frederick Flowers, 66, of Massapequa Park, while driving students home from St. Edward the Confessor School, drove the bus into a Teibrook Avenue home in Syosset, Nassau County Police reported. Five children between the ages of five and nine were on the bus at the time. None of the children were injured, which Nassau County Detectives called a "miracle" on Thursday.
"It's appalling," said Vincent Garcia, a detective with the Nassau County Police Public Information Office and a father himself. "Nassau County Police Department, we pride ourselves on our arrest records…and here you have five children under the age of nine…on a bus."
After he was airlifted to Nassau University Medical Center for non-life threatening injuries, said Garcia. Flowers' blood alcohol content was not reported.
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"We are conducting a full internal investigation and assisting authorities with theirs," said Jen Biddinger, a spokesperson for First Student bus company where Flowers worked. Though Flowers had passed all employment screenings, including ones for drugs and alcohol, Biddinger said he would be suspended pending the outcome of the investigation.
Flowers is charged with five counts of aggravated driving while intoxicated (Leandra's Law), five counts of reckless endangerment, and two counts of driving while intoxicated. Police said Flowers would likely have a bedside arraignment as he is still in the hospital.
St. Edward the Confessor officials were unavailable for comment as of this report.
