SEATTLE -- A charter bus carrying girls on a high school softball team struck a low bridge, peeling the top of the bus off and sending 17 people to the hospital.

SLIDESHOW: Roof Peels Back When Bus Doesn’t Make Bridge Clearance

The bus was traveling on Lake Washington Boulevard in the Washington Park Arboretum when it struck the low-clearance pedestrian bridge Wednesday evening.

Video from Chopper 7 showed firefighters and medics swarming the scene, carrying patients away on stretchers and loading them into aid units and medic units. Girls in uniforms could be seen talking on cell phones as they were taken away.

The injured were not seriously hurt, officials said. Victims were taken to Harborview Medical Center, Swedish Medical Center and Virginia Mason Medical Center.

Chopper 7 video showed the collision crushed the bus' roof and broke some of its windows.

Helicopter video also showed a sign indicating a 9-foot clearance under the bridge, an old brick-and-concrete structure in the Arboretum, an internationally recognized collection of trees and plants in a 230-acre space east of downtown Seattle and south of the University of Washington.

A KIRO 7 photojournalist who lives in the area said lasers on either side of the bridge measure the height of vehicles that are about to go under the overpass and are supposed to trigger a warning light if a vehicle is over 9 feet tall.

Seattle Fire Department spokeswoman Helen Fitzpatrick said the bus was carrying 22 Garfield High School students, their coach and a driver.

They were heading back after a game against Lake Washington High School in Kirkland, which they lost, KIRO 7 Eyewitness News reported.