A young boy injured in last month’s school bus crash in Chesterfield was released from the hospital. A Cooper Hospital spokesperson announced that Jonathan Zdybel, 11, was released Wednesday afternoon. The boy will now stay at Alfred DuPont Rehabilitation in Wilmington as he continues to recover.
Zdybel was among the 17 students hurt after a school bus and a dump truck collided at Bordentown-Chesterfield Road (County Route 528) and Old York Road in Chesterfield back on February 16. The crash caused the bus to spin into a utility pole.
Isabelle Tezsla, 11, was killed in the accident. Her triplet sisters Sophie Tezsla and Natalie Tezsla were injured in the crash and have since been released from the hospital. The girls are the daughters of New Jersey State Trooper Sergeant Anthony Tezsla.
Motor vehicle citations were given to the driver of the school bus and the driver of the dump truck. They did not receive criminal charges however. A summons for failure to stop or yield was issued by the Chesterfield Police Department to school bus driver John Tieman, 66, of Beverly, NJ. The dump truck driver, 38-year-old Michael Caporale of New Egypt, NJ received summonses for failure to secure container and failure to tarp load. The accident is still under investigation.
Jonathan’s family thanked Cooper Hospital in a released statement:
As we are getting ready to leave Cooper Hospital, and make our way to Alfred DuPont Rehabilitation in Wilmington, DE, we want to say thank you to all of our doctors, nurses and staff members who had done their very best to help us in this difficult time and took the best care of our Jonathan. We thank all of you from the bottoms of our hearts.
It isn’t often you find people as dedicated and special as you. People, who go out of their way to make things better for children, people who take time to care. We will miss the kind attention by the sweet nurses and staff. Your thoughtfulness was really appreciated…and so are you.
We would like to congratulate Cooper for having such professional, caring, patient and just fantastic staff.
You will be always in our hearts…
Halina, Kris, Jonathan and Kaitlyn Zdybel
A Red Cross blood drive in honor of the Zdybel and Tezsla families began Wednesday at 1 p.m. and lasted until 7 p.m. at the Mount Laurel Community Center on 100 Mount Laurel Road.
