It’s not really like the bus hit the bridge. It’s more like the bridge hit the bus.

It was April 16, and the girls’ softball team gathered up their bats after a 10 – 0 loss to Lake Washington. This was nothing new. The team finished the year 1 – 19, and were shutout in 11 of those 19 losses. The team’s only win was against the Franklin team, which finished the season 1 – 17 (Franklin’s only win was against Garfield. Go figure).

“Playing for Garfield has kind of made me worse,” says senior captain Sara Jacobs, who’d played 10 years of baseball before joining the team. “Or maybe the team has just gotten worse, I don’t know.” Then she sort of corrects herself, that maybe they haven’t gotten worse, but lazier. Or more fun.

Whatever. They got on the bus to go home, and that’s how the worst team made the biggest news.

They were going to stop near old Garfield because that’s where the majority of the players lived. So the driver followed the GPS system from the game to old Garfield. The quickest route was through the Arboretum, under a pedestrian bridge with a sign prominently displayed: CLEARANCE 9’ — 0”. The bus, however, was slightly taller than nine feet.

Sara was sitting on the left side of the bus, in the middle section, when suddenly the roof was a lot closer and everyone was screaming to get off the bus. She could not figure out what had happened.

“I assumed the bus was on fire in the back,” Sara says.

She got off the bus with everyone, and brought her stuff with her.

Everyone I’ve talked to about the crash describes people flying. Because, on buses, people typically twist themselves towards their conversation, many people flew into the aisle. “I flew up,” says the team’s new coach, Ms. Hahn, who also teaches health at Garfield. She hit her head on the ceiling, and then landed in the stairwell.

“Everyone was sitting around crying and sobbing,” Sara says. “I didn’t know how to react.” After she knew everyone was OK, she took a picture with her cameraphone and called her friend Lily. She went to Harborview to have x-rays and pee in a cup. To get to Harborview, they took a bus identical to the one that had just crashed. This time, it was escorted by police and had firefighters on board.

It was a coincidence that Sara’s mom worked as a legal staff at Harborview, and just walked downstairs to see Sara in a similar but much less dramatic way than in the movies, or in practically every episode of Grey’s Anatomy, where the doctor in the ER looks down to see their loved one on the operating table. The superintendent and the administrators were there. Everyone was understanding, and encouraged taking some days off school.

All the players were back in school in three days; they were more sore than they were injured. Ms. Hahn has been gone since the crash. Her substitute teacher, whose information the class clings to, said she wouldn’t be back for three weeks. A week later, it was the whole year. The rumor was that she has a cracked pelvis, or broken her hip. But another rumor is that she was seen walking around the parking lot the other day. The sub says she has a concussion. “I don’t even remember her injury,” says Sara. “Apparently she swallowed glass.”

“I have a fractured pelvis,” Ms. Hahn clarifies. She can walk, but very slowly and not up stairs or even hills. Now she spends the day sitting at home, playing guitar, making abstract acrylic paintings, and thinking about how much she would rather be back in her classroom teaching.

Hahn has gotten free massages and physical therapy, but no one has banked any money from Journey Lines yet. No one even knows if they want to do that yet. Legally, they have two years to decide.

If anyone is the kind of person a thing like this would happen to, it’s Ms.Hahn. She is constantly telling stories like this that are slightly unbelievable. Like the tattoo of a clover she got on her ankle to celebrate her Irish heritage, only to find out later that she is German. Or her collection of stories about working in a high school in South Central L.A., where a mother wouldn’t give her daughter’s shirt back and tried to fight Ms. Hahn while the daughter stood there watching in a sports bra. Also, Ms. Hahn’s ex-boyfriend once had to ride the short bus to school after he stuck his hand through a fence and it was bit by a dog.

Despite that having your bus crash into a bridge seems like a horribly unfortunate freak accident, Ms. Hahn told me, “I’m pretty lucky. I feel blessed.”

“Yeah, I guess it was a really good team bonding experience,” says Sara.