MEDINA, Ohio — A charter bus carrying members of the Medina High School girls' lacrosse team caught fire on I-77 near Charleston, West Virginia.
The fire happened around 7 p.m. Thursday when the team was heading back to Medina after playing two games against schools in South Carolina and North Carolina.
A spokesperson for the Sissonville Fire Department said the driver pulled over when they noticed a noise from the engine of the bus. A light haze of smoke filled the bus and then the fire grew.
"It’s just crazy to see how close we were to being on the bus and how close we were to a bigger tragedy," senior and captain Maggie O'Neill said. "Two minutes later, we could have been gone."
O'Neill documented much of what happened.
"We were all taking naps and smelled this burning and were like 'That’s not right,'" she said. "We were saying 'Go, go, get off,' so nobody grabbed anything. Some girls left their phone or their shoes. Once we got off the bus, we heard the windows pop. It was chaotic."
Two coaches, 15 players, and the driver were on board, and everyone got off the bus safely.
The School District released the following statement:
"On Thursday, March 27, while returning from their spring break trip in the Carolinas, the girls lacrosse team experienced a travel incident when their charter tour bus caught fire in West Virginia. Thanks to the quick actions of the coaches and staff, all students were able to exit the bus safely. No injuries were reported. The parents of all team members were promptly contacted and informed of the situation and were updated as more information became available. The tour bus company dispatched a replacement bus, safely transporting the team back to Medina."
They were all taken to the Sissonville Fire Station to get cleaned up, eat, and wait for another bus.
"The interstate is not a very safe place so they were transported to our local fire station where they could get cleaned up and get something to eat," Zach Bess with the Sissonville Fire Department explained.
As O'Neill told News 5, some of the team's equipment and luggage survived with just minor smoke damage. However, other equipment, such as jerseys and lacrosse sticks, did not. Additionally, the team had taken a shopping trip earlier in the day, and most, if not all, of those purchases were destroyed in the fire.
O'Neill's father, Toby, was one of the first parents to arrive, after being at the family lakehouse only an hour and a half away.
"It was a long hour and a half," he said. "Glad she’s safe and everyone got off in the nick of time."
Both O'Neill and his daughter expressed appreciation and relief for the firefighters who they said went above and beyond. For proof, look no further than the t-shirt Maggie wore during her interview with News 5: a Sissonville Fire Department T-shirt as if she were an honorary member of sorts at the department.
"We all said as a team said we’re going to wear them as warmups because we don’t have jerseys," she smiled.
O'Neill told News 5 she made it back home in Medina at around 2 a.m. Now, with time to reflect, she calls this setback motivation for a team hoping to capture something special for the rest of her season.
"We all worked as a team to get safe and that's all that matters in the end," she said. "It already meant a lot because I was a senior, but now we have something to play for and we lost a lot of our stuff. We can’t take anything for granted."
