Cottonwood, Minnesota faced a terrible situation Tuesday. Four students died in a school bus crash that took place on Minnesota Highway 23 north of Cottonwood. According to The Associated Press, the Lakeview School bus was hit by a van at around 3:25 p.m. It then collided with a pickup and crashed on its side.

The bus was carrying 28 students from kindergarten through 12th grade and the driver. Minnesota Public Safety spokeswoman Christine Krueger said that besides the 4 dead students, almost 12 more were injured and taken to hospital.

There were almost 40 persons nearby the accident. Minnesota paper the Marshall Independent reports that everyone who was driving an automobile was asked to take children to the hospital. “I parked my car and called 911, and ran to the school bus and the driver was handing kids out the door as fast as I could take them,” witness Karen Mahlum said for the AP.

However, ambulances from almost every city in Lyon County arrived at the crash site: Wood Lake and Granite Falls in Yellow Medicine County and also Redwood Falls. The ambulances took the injured victims to Avera Marshall Regional Medical Center and to Granite Falls Hospital.

Among the students that were taken to the hospital, only two of them were found to be in a critical situation, the others suffering from back injuries, neck injuries, bumps and bruises.

Hospital CEO George Gerlach told the AP that the two children that ere taken to Granite Falls, one 11-year-old and the other 14-years-old “were treated and stabilized in our ER.”

Meanwhile, parents were asked to wait at the Lakeview School in order to receive information about their children.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty said in a statement: “It is especially heartbreaking when young lives are lost; our thoughts and prayers are with the families of those who were killed or injured in this tragic accident.”