The 16-year-old East Otago High School pupil, who was airlifted to Dunedin Hospital with suspected spinal injuries, was believed to be the more seriously injured of two children injured when the school minibus they were in was struck by a spreader truck at Goodwood Rd after school had finished for the day.
East Otago High School principal Lennox Sharp said the grandmother of the girl said the girl was ''battered and bruised but not broken''.
Her schoolmates were ''pretty resilient'' and pleased to hear she was home safely yesterday morning, Mr Sharp said.
A girl, understood to be the victim, wrote on the Otago Daily Times' Facebook page about three hours after the crash that she was all right.
She wrote ''a truck just smashed right into the back of me'' before she was thrown forward into another passenger.
A police commercial investigation was under way, Sergeant Tony Woodbridge, of Oamaru, said at the scene.
