A driver was killed in a crash involving a car and a school bus was just outside Manhattan, Illinois, southwest of Chicago on Thursday morning.

The school bus driver and the students on board were taken to the hospital to be checkedout.

The head-on crash happened on Manhattan-Monee Road, just west of Schoolhouse Road and just east of the Village of Manhattan, a town of just over 10,000 people named for the New York City borough.

The driver of the car was killed, state police said. The school bus driver and the 10 students on board were taken to Silver Cross Hospital in New Lenox to be medically evaluated, state police said.

All eastbound and westbound lanes of Manhattan-Monee Road were shut down at the scene.

A parent, Donna Hyland, said her daughter is a third grader at Anna McDonald School in Manhattan, Illinois, and was one of the youngsters on the school bus. Hyland said she found out about what happened Thursday morning from a text message from the school.

Hyland said she heard from the school that the bus slid into a ditch. She said she was able to talk to her daughter on the phone thanks to a staff member who got in touch with her.

Hyland said it was a moment when her heart just sank when she received the text message, not knowing at first whether her daughter was safe. But she was grateful to be able to speak to her daughter, and then come to the hospital for a reunion.

All the kids and their parents were taken to one room at the hospital to meet up with one another, according to Hyland, who added that as far as she knew, all the kids were physically OK after the very scary and deadly crash.

The investigation into the crash continued as of 10 a.m. Monday.