Kansas prisoners injured in bus crash on way to Russell Stover job

TOPEKA — Eight residents of the women’s prison in Topeka were injured early Thursday when a bus transporting them from the Russell Stover factory in Iola crashed into a semi-truck hauling dirt.

A spokesman for the Kansas Highway Patrol said the accident happened when the bus failed to stop at a stop sign, striking the semi-truck and sending it into a ditch around 1 a.m. Thursday. The accident occurred on US-169 highway north of Iola.

The inmates were heading back from their factory shift when the accident happened. While three of the women sustained bone fractures from the collision, all of the injured inmates are expected to recover. The only severely injured person appears to be the bus driver, who had to be air-lifted to a Kansas City hospital for treatment, the spokesman said.

David Thompson, spokesman for the Kansas Department of Corrections, said “those with injuries are being treated.” 

The other 13 inmates on the bus were sent back to the work site after undergoing examination at a local hospital, Thompson said. 

The state since 2021 has transported residents from the Topeka Correctional Facility to the candy factory as part of a work-release program. Last year, the bus crashed along U.S. Highway 169, but the crash didn’t result in serious injuries, the Topeka Capital-Journal reported.