A woman who last month moved to Squirrel Hill from Germany died Friday when a school bus packed with students ran her over two blocks from her new home.

Eva Thumshirn-Klimo, 34, of Ebdy Street was run over by a W.L. Roenigk Inc. bus about 8:40 a.m. as she crossed Shady Avenue at Monitor Street. The incident occurred about 10 minutes after she dropped off her toddler at a nearby day-care center, Pittsburgh police said.

Police said the bus was transporting 34 students in grades six through eight to Sterrett Classical Academy in Point Breeze. None of the students aboard the bus was injured, police said. Students boarded another bus after the accident and were taken to school, police said.

"It's hard to imagine what they saw," said city school police Chief Robert Fadzen. "It breaks your heart. They don't understand the implications of this tragedy."

The driver of the bus is a 63-year-old woman who has been a bus driver for 22 years, said police, who declined to identify her. She was turning onto Shady from Monitor when she hit Thumshirn-Klimo and stopped the bus after witnesses yelled out. In a panic, the driver backed up and ran over the woman again, police said.

Police said they were unsure if the driver will be charged. A manager at Roenigk's Sarver office declined to comment.

The news of Thumshirn-Klimo's death shook the quiet neighborhood, where many children walk to Minadeo Elementary School just a block away.

"This is such a horrible tragedy," said Mary Mervis, 46, whose 12-year-old son was aboard the bus. "I cross this intersection every day. I can't avoid this spot. It's pretty upsetting. It's pretty surreal."

Mervis, whose son called her about 11 a.m. from his school's gym where homicide detectives were questioning students, said the other children on the bus scrambled to the back to see what had happened.

"He said the bus was quieter than you'd expect. He said the kids were just saying 'Oh my God! Oh my God!'" Mervis said. "All they could see was a body."

Thumshirn-Klimo moved to Squirrel Hill from Berlin last month so that her husband, Arpad von Klimo, could begin a five-year stint as a visiting professor in the University of Pittsburgh's history department, a staff member at the school said.

Von Klimo, who formerly taught at Free University of Berlin, is conducting two undergraduate classes on Germany and Europe this semester. He could not be reached.

Thumshirn-Klimo did some aid work for earthquake victims in Afghanistan, according to German reports.

Thumshirn-Klimo had dropped off her 18-month-old daughter at Rainbow's End Learning Academy, about a quarter-mile from the accident scene. An employee who answered the phone declined to comment.

Lisa Grimm, 52, of Squirrel Hill went to the corner in the afternoon to pick up her daughter from a nearby bus stop.

"I didn't want to come down to the corner, to tell you the truth. I didn't want to see it," she said.

Fadzen said student-assistance providers were available at the school to offer counseling to any students who needed it.

Mervis said she doesn't know how her son will handle what he saw.

"He's a 12-year-old boy. He's going to say everything is fine," she said. "But he's at a vulnerable age. I don't know how you just erase something like that."

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