Nine people were injured when a bus carrying inmates to a Topeka women’s prison from a work program at Russell Stover Chocolates in Iola crashed early Thursday morning.
Allen County Sheriff Bryan Murphy said the wreck occurred when the bus turned in front of a semi-trailer hauling dirt to Chanute at the intersection of U.S. 169 and Oregon Road.
Of the injured, the bus driver was flown from the scene to a Kansas City area hospital, the Kansas Department of Corrections announced in a press release.
The other eight injured were residents of the Topeka Correctional Facility. Of those, three suffered bone fractures. All are expected to recover.
As a precautionary measure, all of the passengers were sent to either Allen County Regional Hospital or Neosho Memorial Regional Medical Center for assessment.
The extent of the bus driver’s injuries were not immediately available.
The semi-truck driver was not injured, Murphy said.
The names of the drivers and the injured have not been released.
The prisoners had just finished their 3-11 p.m. shift at the Russell Stover plant, the KDOC report said.
The Kansas Highway Patrol is investigating the crash, Murphy said.
The program at Russell Stover plants in Iola and Abilene has been around since 2021 and was launched as a major work program for around 60 female inmates in Iola.
It has garnered some pushback from prison reform activists, though inmate safety was never considered one of the chief objections, the Topeka Capital Journal reported. A portion of the inmates’ salary is redirected to pay for transportation and other costs.
The crash is at least the second in as many years involving the program at Russell Stover in Iola. In 2022, a bus went off the road in Anderson County, but no injuries were sustained. It is believed the driver on the bus fell asleep, the Capital Journal reported.
