Update on "A Tale of Two Buses": Student Dies from Injuries

An update to our story of ten days ago.

Daniel Viflic, 16, was critically injured when the school bus he was riding on was directly hit by an anti-tank missile fired from Gaza Strip.

The 16-year-old boy who was injured in the anti-tank missile attack on a school bus in the Negev by Hamas terrorists 10 days ago, died on Sunday after a steady decline to critical condition.

Viflic suffered severe head trauma and was artificially respirated at the scene after the bus sustained a direct hit by a missile. He was rushed to Soroka University Medical Center Hospital in Beersheba, where his family has been holding vigil for the past ten days. On April 12, the severity of his condition was upgraded to extremely critical and doctors expressed concern that he had suffered irreparable brain damage.

The anti-tank missile hit the bus moments after most of the children got off, while it was traveling near Kibbutz Sa’ad, about 2.5 km. from the Gaza Strip. Just two people were on onboard when it was hit – the driver, who was lightly injured, and the boy, who was en route to visit his grandmother.

Our prayers are with Daniel's family.

H/T The Jawa Report

Cross posted at LCR, Say Anything.

A Tale of Two School Buses

I heard about this on the radio today, and it made me think of another incident with a school bus that was in the news recently.

An anti-tank missile fired from the Gaza Strip has struck a school bus in southern Israel, wounding two people, including one child critically, according to Israeli officials.

Israeli tanks retaliated by opening fire across the border. Palestinians said a 50-year-old man was killed and seven other people were wounded.

Israel's defence minister, Ehud Barak, ordered the army to respond quickly and said he held Hamas, which controls Gaza, responsible for the violence. There was no claim of responsibility for the attack.

Israeli medical services said the bus was nearly empty after dropping off schoolchildren and was carrying only the driver and one passenger when it was hit. Paramedics tried to resuscitate a 16-year-old boy with a serious head wound at the scene. The driver was moderately wounded

.

Flashback to 1976:

SACRAMENTO — California's parole board on Tuesday granted parole for a man convicted of hijacking a school bus and holding 26 children and their driver captive underground in 1976, the latest turn in a years-long debate over whether the three men involved in the crime have served enough time.

Richard Allen Schoenfeld was set for release in 2021. However, any governor in the next 10 years can ask the board to reconsider its decision, board spokesman Luis Patino said.

Schoenfeld, now age 56, along with his brother Jim, and Fred Woods, captured the nation's attention when they used guns and nylon masks to commandeer a Chowchilla school bus. They then buried the children and driver in a truck underground. The three were sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.

In 1976, the nation was shocked that anyone would target a school bus for a kidnapping. In 2011, people regularly try to blow them up with people inside and it hardly makes the news. Wonder why that is?

Update: Here's a link to a 1970's Israeli school bus attack.


Cross posted at LCR, Say Anything.