Bus crash: Bigfork man pleads guilty to criminal endangerment

A 19-year-old Bigfork man has pleaded guilty to criminal endangerment and drunk-driving charges for rear-ending a school bus that had stopped to drop off students near Polson.

Daniel Fellows told Lake County District Judge James Manley on Wednesday that he was driving about 80 mph when his pickup truck slammed into the bus near Polson on May 11.

Students on the bus were treated at a hospital for minor injuries. The bus was totaled.

Fellows’ blood-alcohol content was .122 and he said he drank three beers before the crash.

Fellows and prosecutors have agreed to a plea deal that calls for a deferred sentence of six years and paying restitution to the victims and the Polson School District.

Manley set a sentencing hearing for July 22.

The crash occurred about three miles east of Polson on Montana 35.

One student was getting off the stopped Polson School District bus when it was struck. The student was thrown several feet, Montana Highway Patrol Trooper Terry Rosenbaum said.

Rosenbaum said 10 or 11 students were transported to local hospitals. All were released within a few hours.

About 30 minutes before the crash, motorists driving northbound on U.S. 93 near St. Ignatius began calling emergency dispatchers about a reckless driver in a white Chevy truck traveling at a high rate of speed, making dangerous passes and nearly forcing vehicles off the road, Rosenbaum said.

That driver, Fellows, was later spotted illegally passing a stopped Polson School District bus — also unloading students — about a mile north of the U.S. 93 and Montana 35 intersection.

Lake County Prosecuting Attorney Steve Eschenbacher said Fellows was within seconds of killing a student getting off the first bus.