Police respond to an accident that sent a motorcycle through the window of St. Clement Episcopal Day School. Photograph by Wayne Hulehan
Alexandria — A motorcycle and a car collided on Quaker Lane on Tuesday, June 16, sending the rider headlong into a tree and the bike crashing through the window of St. Clement Episcopal Day School.
Apart from the motorcyclist, no one was seriously injured, but the event left many children shaken and the community amazed at the good fortune of the classroom’s occupants.
Local photographer Wayne Hulehan was on scene moments after the accident. Whipping out his phone, he began to cover what he described as “mass confusion” as police and emergency personnel arrived and traffic slowed as police attempted to close the road and drivers tried to get a look at the scene.
From his initial position on the west side of Quaker Lane, Hulehan could see a wrecked car parked in the middle of the street. It wasn’t until he until he moved closer and saw the break in the church fence, and the gaping hole where a window had been, that he understood what had transpired.
“It was then that I suspected a motorcycle was involved,” he said.
From his new vantage point near the 7-11, Hulehan watched as the police entered St. Clement and a gurney was pulled from an ambulance. Looking at the hole and the intersection, which was littered with black debris from the two vehicles, Hulehan imagined that this accident would surely have serious consequences.
But when he asked a police officer if there had been any casualties, he was amazed to hear that there was not one fatality, and that only the motorcyclist had been seriously injured.
“He just told me, ‘We didn’t lose him, he’s alive.’” The motorcyclist was taken to the hospital, where he was last reported to be in serious condition.
St. Clement church and school employees echoed Hulehan’s astonishment that no one, save the motorcyclist, had been seriously hurt. Father John Hortum, who heads the school, gave an account that emphasized the luck of those in the Purple Room, which is used for children aged 3 - 4: the teacher, Maria Medrano, had apparently just bent down to assist a student when the bike careened through the window and flew right over their heads.
Hortum went on to describe how the room was covered in bits of wood and shattered glass; great gouge marks had been scraped into the floor and cabinet doors. There was also a pool of vomit, made by one of the frightened students.
Church employees worked late into the night cleaning up the wreckage and covering the window with plywood. Thanks to their efforts, the class of the Purple Room was able to use the room for instruction the next day; the beginnings of a flower mural on the plywood covering the window added a bit of cheer to the darkened classroom.
To help the students cope with the trauma of the accident, Hortum spoke to each of them, reminding them that he and the other school staff members would be more than willing to discuss the event with anyone at any time.
The school also made a point of showing the Purple Room to the other students so they would understand fully that no one was hurt badly and that there is nothing to fear about the classroom itself.
Despite a few nightmares, the students were able to stay on track and the semester was successfully concluded on Friday. An end-of-year program put on by the students and faculty capped off the term, and the St. Clement community seems to be recovering from the shock induced by the accident.
The window remains boarded up as the church has yet to find a suitable third-party to assist with the repairs.
The cause of the accident is still unknown. The Alexandria Police Department’s crash reconstruction team has yet to conclude their investigation.