Illinois Bus Overturns

A bus carrying hearing-impaired children to a spelling bee rolled over on Interstate 55 Friday, killing one man and injuring 23 people, one critically.

The bus crashed about 7 a.m. near Braidwood, about 50 miles southwest of Chicago, police said. It was carrying the schoolchildren from the John Powers Center in Vernon Hills, a Chicago suburb, to the gathering in downstate East Peoria, police said.

The southbound bus drifted into the center median and was clipped by a northbound car while the bus's driver was trying to get back into the southbound lanes, according to Wilmington Police Chief Jim Metta.

The bus appears to have rolled over more than once before coming to rest in a ditch, he said.

Two of the seven adults on the bus were pinned beneath it, and one of the two was killed, he said. The man was the father of a girl on the bus.

At Provena St. Joseph Medical Center in Joliet, a 31-year-old man was in critical condition and three other adults were in serious condition, a hospital spokeswoman said. Three others - two children and an adult - were in good condition, she said.

Sixteen others were taken to three other hospitals. None of their injuries was considered life-threatening, according to hospital spokeswomen.