An Owensville man who rear-ended a Gasconade County R-2 School District bus on May 1 received more serious injuries that originally reported.

Cpl. Coby Holzschuh said Tuesday that “driver inattention” is a likely cause for the crash which injured Steven A. Cain, 30. Cain was driving a 2018 Chevrolet pickup truck which struck the back of an R-2 School District 2015 International school bus on Highway 19, 1,477 feet north of the county road Bohemian Highway. Both vehicles were traveling northbound and the school bus was stopped in the highway with its emergency lights activated, preparing to take on student passengers. 

Holzschuh said Cain’s injuries were “moderate to serious” and he remained hospitalized over the weekend. He was initially transported by ambulance to Mercy Hospital Washington and then transferred to Mercy Hospital St. Louis, according to a hospital spokesman at the Washington facility.

As of Tuesday afternoon, Cain was in “satisfactory condition” at the St. Louis facility, according to a Mercy St. Louis hospital spokesperson.

Holzschuh said Cain had relocated from the Pacific area to Owensville with his wife and was returning home from an overnight work shift when the crash occurred.

Also transported by ambulance to area hospitals for evaluation were four R-2 students including Shaun B. Farris, 15, Owensville, Aaliyah M. Johnson, 13, Gerald, Avery G. Kelley, 15, Owensville, and Sawyer L. Wright, 15, also of Owensville. All their injuries were listed as minor and a school district administrator said they were treated and released. Farris and Johnson were treated at Missouri Baptist in Sullivan. Kelley and Wright were taken to Mercy Washington.

Cain was wearing a seat belt. The students were listed as “exempt” since the bus is not equipped with seat belts. Theresa A. Jahnsen, 52, Bland, the district’s bus driver, was wearing a seat belt. She was not injured.“The school district did a tremendous job, immediately contacting the parents of the kids on the school bus,” said Holzschuh.

Photos from this accident can be found at: http://www.gasconadecountyrepublican.com/content/bus-accident-5-1-19