Raleigh, N.C. ? A truck driver fumbling for a cell phone plowed his tractor-trailer into a stopped school bus Tuesday in rural North Carolina, killing a 5-year-old girl as she boarded the bus, troopers said. Her mother and more than a dozen other children were injured.

The force of the crash, on a two-lane highway near Maxton, propelled the bus more than 400 feet and into the yards of nearby houses. Sheila Hernandez, who was on her way to pre-kindergarten, was killed. Maria Hernandez, 25, was severely injured as she stood nearby, watching her daughter.

The truck driver, Gary Garnett, had been heading to pick up a load of chickens for Mountaire Farms. He told troopers “he was distracted because he was trying to locate his cell phone, which he dropped on the floorboard,” said Sgt. Everett Clendenin, a spokesman for the Highway Patrol.

Charges were expected against Garnett once troopers confer with prosecutors later this week, Clendenin said. Garnett was hospitalized with severe injuries.

According to the Highway Patrol, Garnett had been involved in at least two other accidents and had four previous driving convictions, including one for going 30 mph over the speed limit.

Clendenin said skid marks at the scene showed the trucker attempted to stop before his vehicle hit the bus squarely in the rear and then hit the child’s mother.

Maria Hernandez was hospitalized Tuesday in serious condition. Two children from the bus were also taken to nearby hospitals, but information on their conditions was not available. Fourteen others were treated and released.

Mike Terrell, Mountaire’s vice president for operations, said he had no information on Garnett’s previous record.

“We make sure that we are very diligent in following the U.S. Department of Transportation rules and regulations,” Terrell said.

The accident scene was about 1 1/2 miles north of Maxton, near the South Carolina border.

North Carolina State Highway Patrol officers investigate the scene of a fatal bus crash near Maxton, N.C. A tractor-trailer slammed into the stopped school bus, killing a 5-year-old girl who was boarding and injuring the girl's mother and more than a dozen other children.

Also Tuesday, nine elementary school students were injured in another collision in Okahumpka, Fla., when a tractor-trailer clipped the rear end of their bus. The truck driver was cited for failing to yield the right of way.

In northeastern Oklahoma, at least one high school student was killed and five others injured when their sport utility vehicle collided with a school bus, officials said.

And in Bloomfield Township, Mich., an Amtrak passenger train collided with a school bus that was occupied only by the driver, who was taken to a local hospital. No one on the train was injured, police Capt. Kirt Bowden said.

On Monday, a school bus in St. Louis overturned on a highway, injuring the driver and many of the 26 children aboard.