POSTED: 7:34 am CST March 30, 2006

UPDATED: 7:48 am CST March 30, 2006

DEVERS, Texas -- Crisis counselors and local ministers will help students at a Beaumont high school cope with the loss of two classmates killed and 23 others injured after a bus transporting the girls' soccer team crashed en route to a playoff game in the Houston area, KPRC Local 2 reported Thursday.

Beaumont Independent School District superintendent Carroll Thomas said counselors would be made available to West Brook High School students on Thursday."We are expecting for some kids to need some help, and we are going to have those resources there for them," principal Rodney Cavness said.

Teachers, students and parents gathered Wednesday night in the gymnasium of West Brook High School, holding hands and remembering the victims and trying to learn further details of the accident.The team was traveling to Humble, near Houston, for a playoff game against Houston's Lamar High School when the accident occurred about 2:30 p.m. on Highway 90, about three miles east of Devers, which is about 60 miles northeast of Houston. The bus was heading west when an eastbound truck pulling a flat bed trailer loaded with plastic foam insulation lost its load, the DPS said. The bus swerved, lost control and rolled into the ditch, said DPS spokesman Tom Vinger.

"The bus driver attempted to take evasive action, and with the wet roads, lost control of the vehicle into the ditch," Department of Public Safety trooper Richard Vasser said.Backpacks littered the muddy ditch where the charter bus landed after skidding on its side. Passers-by stopped at the scene to comfort students, who stood in the rain.

On board were 25 people: 22 students, one coach, one chaperone and a bus driver. Ashley Brown, 16, and Alicia Bonura, 19, were pronounced dead at the scene while others on the bus were taken to hospitals in Beaumont and Liberty, the DPS said."They were competitors. They played with heart. They were a joy to coach and were just exceptional students," said Pat Thomas, a former soccer coach for Bonura and Brown.

Two other girls were trapped in the vehicle and were pried from the wreckage, Trooper Richard Vasser said.

Eleven girls and the team's coach were transported to Liberty-Dayton Community Hospital with mostly minor injuries, but all had been released by Wednesday evening, said Rita Dellostritto, an emergency nursing practitioner at the hospital.Eight of the injured were taken to Christus St. Elizabeth Hospital in Beaumont, but no details were immediately available about their conditions, hospital spokeswoman Debbie Sebastian said.

As of Thursday morning, five students were still in the hospital. One was listed in critical condition. Two others were listed in serious condition. The remaining two were listed in good condition.The Lamar High School girl's soccer team was in the locker room when they heard the news. School officials said the parents were more shaken up than the students.

"I think it makes them think twice about how you leave the house every morning … have you said 'I love you,'" Lamar High School principal James McSwain said.All of Wednesday night's soccer matches were canceled because of the tragedy. School officials have not said if and when the games would be rescheduled.

People stopped to help and console students, whose injuries ranged from "very serious to cuts and bruises," said Cathy Jones, EMT coordinator for the local volunteer fire department.She said she arrived at the scene seven to eight minutes after the crash.

"It was very chaotic and very overwhelming," she said.

Dellostritto said the injured girls were unaware that two of their teammates had died when they arrived at the hospital, their hair and clothes drenched after waiting in the wet weather.

"Initially, they were sort of calm ... until they started getting phone calls from their friends," she said."They got emotional and started crying," she said.

As officials tried later Wednesday to reconstruct the accident, overturned seats could be seen inside the bus. The passenger side of the vehicle appeared largely unscathed, but windows were shattered on the driver's side and wires dangled from the wreckage.Vinger said the truck driver didn't realize at first that he had lost the load. There was no immediate evidence that drugs or alcohol was involved. DPS will take blood samples from both the truck and bus drivers, officials said.

The bus driver was driven to the hospital by the owner of the company, Beaumont-based Sun Travel Limousine, officials said.Beaumont ISD Superintendent Carrol Thomas said the district had utilized the company for years without incident.

"This is the most tragic thing I can remember happening," Thomas said.

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4.13.2006

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Thanks very much, it is appreciated, I have also posted your news story.

Brian

 

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9.23.2008

OCALA, FL (AP) -- Authorities say at least one person has died after a tractor-trailer rear-ended a school bus in a "very serious" accident in North Florida.

Florida Highway Patrol spokesman Pat Riordan says both vehicles caught on fire in the accident Tuesday. It was unclear if the fatality was a student. He says about 23 people were aboard the bus, and 17 students have been accounted for.

The accident occurred on U.S. Highway 301 near 155th Street in Marion County. It was unclear what school the bus from.

Marion County Sheriff's Office spokesman Jimmy Pogue says multiple students were injured, calling it a "very serious" accident.

Television shots show the cab of the tractor-trailer had burned completely, while the back of the bus had flame damage.

The trailer carries a CSX emblem, which is a Jacksonville based company. We have a call into CSX for comment.

reply

Hi, sorry to hear this, I think this might be that dream.

Brian

 

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