Rock thrown at school bus on NJ Turnpike fractures skull of 8-year-old girl

An 8-year-old girl’s skull was fractured when a maniac hurled a rock through the window of her school bus as it traveled on the New Jersey Turnpike, officials said.

“A rock the size of a baseball was thrown through the school bus, into the bus, injuring a child,” Teaneck Mayor Mark Schwartz said in a video posted Friday on Facebook.

The third-grader, whose father is a rabbi, was on a bus from the Yeshivat Noam Orthodox Jewish Day School, headed home from a class trip to the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City.

The bus was leaving the turnpike at Exit 70 between 1:30 and 2:30 p.m. Wednesday when the rock came crashing through her window, Schwartz said. 

The child had emergency surgery the next day.

Schwartz, who said the girl is doing well, has offered a $5,000 reward to catch the dangerous vandal.

“Someone saw something,” he told The Post. “Someone did this. Someone threw the rock.”

The New Jersey State Police are investigating and have created a tip line at 732-441-4500, ext. 1401.

Deputy Mayor Elie Katz asked motorists to check their dash cameras.

“They may be holding some very important information for state police,” he said.

“There are kids right now who are scared to get on buses, scared to go to school,” Katz said.

“You do something horrific and heinous like this you will get caught.”

Officials cautioned that the incident appears to be random, and not a targeted antisemitic attack. The bus had no religious signage.