Greene County-Greeneville Emergency Medical Service personnel stood by at the Tennessee/North Carolina state line Wednesday morning following a chain-reaction crash in Marshall, N.C., involving three Madison County School buses.

EMS Director Robert Sayne said a call requesting possible assistance was received shortly after the 9:55 a.m. crash, which the Asheville Citizen-Times reports happened on U.S. 25-70 near the Madison campus of Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College.

The site is north of Marshall near the N.C. 213 intersection.

The chain-reaction accident involving three Madison County school activity buses and a pickup truck left 48 students and an adult injured. Authorities said none of the injuries was life-threatening.

The injured students were sixth-graders from Madison Middle School.

EMS agencies provide mutual assistance when requested, as Greene County-Greeneville EMS did on Sept. 20 when a school bus crashed on Mount Wesley Road in Washington County, injuring 26 students.

In the case of Wednesday's Madison County accident, Greene County personnel stood by at the state line for about 30 minutes, but were not requested to transport any students to local hospitals, Sayne said.

Thirty-three of the injured students were taken to nearby Mashburn Medical Center, while 15 students and an adult bus driver were transported to Mission Hospital in Asheville, the Citizen-Times reported.