Various aspects of group, community, and individual interventions in a school pedestrian overpass accident are described and analyzed. A planning group of school personnel, parents, community mental health center staff and university child psychiatry faculty initiated a broad school based assessment and intervention program shortly after the accident occurred. The social dynamics of this collaborative effort involving different personalities, professional disciplines, and institutions were complex. Collaboration was sufficiently successful to achieve the primary goal of assisting a large population, assimilate an unpredictable catastrophic event and adapt again to a predictable world. A secondary research goal of studying the impact of the accident in depth on individuals was not sufficiently met.