He crashed an empty bus, went into cardiac arrest, and never woke up
A school bus driver’s fatal cardiac arrest behind the wheel became a workers’ comp case his employer could not shake.
The driver worked for Dansville Central School District and had been under a cardiologist’s care for premature ventricular contractions and cardiomyopathy - though cleared as posing “no imminent risk” to safely operate a commercial vehicle.
On April 5, 2022, he was steering an empty bus into the school’s bus garage when he lost control during an apparent medical event and crashed into a parked bus. First responders found him in ventricular fibrillation cardiac arrest. His normal heart rhythm took roughly an hour to restore. He never regained consciousness and died five days later with neurologic, lung, kidney and rib injuries.
Two claims followed - lifetime benefits and death benefits. After the driver’s surviving spouse also died, the executor of his estate pursued both.
The school district tried several angles. It argued the lifetime claim should be marked “no further action” because the already-dead worker had not appeared at a prehearing conference. The problem: the district waited over 18 months before raising the objection. New York’s Appellate Division, Third Department found the argument waived.
It also pushed for the claim to abate because the worker died before adjudication. The court held the Workers’ Compensation Board acted within its discretion to continue, given the surveillance video and hospital records.
That left the core medical puzzle. Did an unrelated cardiac event cause the crash - or did the crash cause the fatal arrhythmia? The driver’s longtime cardiologist testified he had been “doing quite well” and it would have been “surprising” for his known conditions to trigger sustained arrhythmia. A second cardiologist agreed it was “impossible to be absolutely certain” which came first. The employer’s own physician admitted he was merely assuming the cardiac event preceded the crash.
The Board credited the treating doctors. All injuries were compensable.
On death benefits, the death certificate named cardiac arrhythmia as the immediate cause but listed “[m]ultiple blunt force injuries” as significant contributing factors. The medical examiner testified the crash injuries more likely than not stressed an already frail heart.
The Appellate Division affirmed all amended decisions unanimously on October 15, 2026.
For HR teams, the practical takeaway: when an employee is injured during work hours on work premises, the statutory presumption that the accident arose out of employment is hard to dislodge - even when a pre-existing condition clouds the causal picture.
