ORANGE COUNTY, Calif. — A former school bus driver here was sentenced on Friday for failing to disclose a medical condition that caused him to black out, crash a bus, and injure several students in 2014, KTLA reports.
As previously reported, prosecutors said that on April 24, 2014, Gerald Douglas Rupple was driving a bus for Orange Unified School District (USD) at a speed of about 50 mph when he passed out and slammed the bus into several trees. All 11 students on board suffered injuries, including broken bones and a shattered spine.
Rupple, who had failed to disclose a medical condition that caused him to have seizures and black out, was sentenced to 210 days in jail, according to KTLA. He was convicted of 11 felony counts of child abuse and endangerment, one felony count of perjury, and four sentencing enhancements for causing great bodily injury, the news source reports. Court officials also told KTLA that Rupple was ordered to serve five years of formal probation.
Rupple had worked for Orange USD since 2010, according to the news source, and was arrested in Arizona in January 2015 before pleading guilty last June. In 2017, officials from Orange USD reached a $10 million settlement with the families of five of the students on board the bus, KTLA reports.
