BUTLER TWP — A medical issue may have been the reason for a Valley Lines school bus crashing into a home Friday morning on South Duffy Road.

A Butler School District bus contracted to Valley Lines was heading to Northwest Elementary School when the bus veered off the road and hit the house at 124 S. Duffy Road.

Driver Gordon Stetzer had apparently gone into an altered state of awareness at the time of the accident, according to Sgt. Steve Hensel with the Butler Township Police Department.

Homeowner Ed Wilbert seconded that.

“(The bus driver) told me that he passed out,” Wilbert said.

However, there is no indication that drugs or alcohol were involved, Hensel said. Regardless, Stetzer will have to undergo chemical testing to verify that.

Stetzer, 71, of Butler has been suspended from Valley Lines, according to Valley Lines spokesman Bill Wehr.

“His medical condition is such that his (commercial driver’s license) has been suspended,” Wehr said. A commercial driver’s license is required to drive a school bus.

Stetzer was uninjured in the accident.

When the bus crashed into the home, it was carrying 48 students, none of whom was injured, according to Hensel. At the time, the bus was driving under the speed limit, which is 25 mph, he said.

Wilbert was home alone when the accident occurred.

Wilbert was in the room right next to the front window and porch where the bus had hit. Had the accident happened minutes before, he might have been hit.

“I was in the next room over,” he said. “Ten minutes, or five minutes before though, I was right there in the chair where the bus hit. It was a little scary. I walked out to the front door, and the bus was just there on the porch.”

Wilbert said the bus “sheared (the gas meter) right off,” and the smell of natural gas was everywhere. The utility company shut off the gas to the home, Wilbert said.

Because the entire front window of the house is broken and there is no gas in the home, the Wilberts plan to stay in a hotel for now.

Immediately after the crash, the students were taken to Northwest by another bus, and the students were checked by the school nurse.

Hensel does not anticipate that Stetzer will be charged, pending the results of the investigation.