A school bus leaped the median on Snelling Avenue, crashed through a Hamline sign and embedded itself over halfway into a university building just past 2 p.m. on Tuesday, June 2.

The school bus driver and a number of school-age children were taken by ambulance to a local hospital, but St. Paul fire officials said no major injuries were sustained. Hamline Public Safety immediately evacuated the area. No Hamline students or staff sustained injuries either.

Tire tracks show that the bus drove through more than a hundred feet of grass before it crashed through the Hamline sign on Snelling Avenue and slammed into Robbins Science Center, leaving a giant hole in the facade of the building.

“I was doing work at the corner table, and then a breeze went up the staircase, blew my headphones literally off of my face and then the building started filling up with smoke and the fire alarms were going out,” said junior Kiley Knudson.

Photos show the bus broke through the exterior wall and into a hallway filled with labs, classrooms and offices.

The local fire and police departments arrived immediately on scene to investigate.

“Police will do a reconstruction of the accident to see what happened, they’ll start an investigation, then the bus will be removed and they’ll start to repair the building,” said St. Paul District Fire Chief Glen Jenkins.

It is currently unclear how long the process of rebuilding will take. Further details are pending the police investigation.

Hamline’s campus will be closed the rest of Tuesday, June 2.

“Emergency responders remain actively engaged on campus, and the situation is ongoing. We are coordinating closely with our public safety partners and will provide additional information as it becomes available,” said Assistant Vice President of Public Safety Illiana Cantu Delgado in a university-wide email.

The bus has been removed from Robbins Science Center and is ready for transit.