Two girls were flown to hospitals with severe injuries and three others were taken to hospital after a serious bus crash in Passaic, New Jersey, closed East Shore Road for several hours on Tuesday afternoon. The Haredi news outlet Rockland Daily urged readers to pray for the two girls, whom it identified as 14-year-olds “Sara bas Rita” and “Simcha bas Neima.”

According to a press release from the West Milford Police Department, the Monsey Trails bus coming from Brooklyn crashed into a tree, “causing one of the branches to break off and enter the passenger compartment of the bus,” injuring five girls, two of whom were severely hurt.

Rockland Daily reported that the bus was one of three buses traveling from Shaare Torah School in Flatbush, a Sephardic school on Coney Island Avenue, to a boating trip in Orange County, when it struck a tree. A branch came off the tree and broke the bus’s windows. According to CBS News, the two severely hurt girls had to be taken out of the bus using the “jaws of life” hydraulic tool and then flown to receive urgent medical care: one to St. Joseph's University Medical Center in Paterson, the other to Hackensack University Hospital.

One local resident who was present at the scene told CBS how the two girls appeared after the crash. "There was two girls that looked like they had some kind of head trauma,” Anton David said.

The police, local sheriff’s department, and local prosecutor’s office are investigating the crash.

Monsey Trails did not immediately respond to Shtetl’s request for comment.