Parents upset after suspected drunk school bus driver runs off road

RUSH CITY, Minn. (FOX 9) - Amanda Hamlin is used to a school bus turning around on her rural driveway in Rush City while picking up her kids. But she is still in shock after seeing what happened Thursday morning.

"Honestly, I was shaking. I was crying. I was upset about the fact that this could have ended so terribly. Luckily it didn't," said Hamlin.

Hamlin's Ring camera captured the school bus sliding past where it usually stops and continuing through her yard and into the swamp behind it.

Hamlin says the driver then tried to back the bus out of the swamp but rammed into her family's basketball hoop about a dozen times.

"It was all very panicked. I let her know she was hitting our basketball hoop. She let me know that she knew that," said Hamlin.

The Chisago County Sheriff's Office says there were 49 children on the bus but none of them were hurt.

When deputies questioned the 59-year-old female bus driver, they noticed signs of alcohol impairment, so they arrested her on suspicion of drunk driving.

"I was devastated. That's tragic. That's inexcusable. Those are our precious babies we are entrusting with this bus driver and that's just not acceptable," said Hamlin.

At Thursday night's Rush City school board meeting, Hamlin's husband told board members his family has complained about this bus driver speeding, hitting their neighbor's mailbox, and driving erratically, but their concerns have fallen on deaf ears.

"This is very alarming because there have been way too many people red flagging it for this not to have been looked into. I just had a meeting yesterday where I said what's it going to take, a tragedy before you guys believe me," said Jarrod Hamlin.