A school bus driver has been accused of drunken driving after Suffolk County police said he backed into a tree limb in Cold Spring Harbor on Monday morning, injuring a 12-year-old girl on board.
James Sommer was driving a school bus carrying 29 Plainedge Middle School seventh graders and a teacher on a field trip to the DNA Learning Center at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory when the incident occurred at 10:15 a.m., police said.
The girl was taken to Huntington Hospital for treatment of minor injuries.
The 47-year-old Massapequa man was arrested and charged with driving while ability impaired.
The school bus was impounded. Sommer will be arraigned Tuesday at First District Court in Central Islip.
The case is the third time this month that a school bus driver was charged with drunken driving. The first crashed into a house in Syosset on Oct. 3 and the other was driving without a tire on the Long Island Expressway on Oct. 10, authorities have said