A school-bus driver died Tuesday from injuries suffered when the bus he was driving crashed into a fence near a San Tan Valley high school, the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office said.

At about 1:45 p.m., the Sheriff’s Office received a call about the school-bus crash in the 32000 block of North Gantze Road, near Poston Butte High School.

When deputies arrived, they found the bus driver, identified as Jerzy Adamsyzk, 74, with serious injuries to his head and abdominal area, officials said.

He was transported to a hospital and pronounced dead there, the Sheriff’s Office said. The driver was on his way to pick up students at the school, officials added.

The assistant bus driver was the only other person in the vehicle, officials said. The assistant was taken to the hospital as a precaution, the Sheriff’s Office said.

The Sheriff’s Office said investigators were not sure what caused the crash or whether there was a medical issue involved.

The school is part of the Florence Unified School District, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Florence Unified School District fared better than the statewide average when it came to buses failing safety inspections, according to an Arizona Republic database. The district failed 16 percent of its school-bus safety inspections during 2013-15, according to the Republic database. That was better than the statewide average of  21 percent for the same period, according to the Republic database. The Republic’s September report found that Arizona schools failed nearly 30 percent of school-bus safety inspections for major defects in 2015 alone.

Read or Share this story: http://azc.cc/2ovIxQK