The town of Mount Pleasant, about two hours east of Dallas in East Texas, is mourning the loss of a high school track coach after a large truck crashed into a bus and a car while the team was returning from an away meet. Nineteen students and another coach were hurt in the crash, which caused the bus to roll over. The driver of the truck was also killed.
The Mount Pleasant High School track team was on its way home from a track meet in Paris about an hour north. They were more than halfway back home on what should have been an uneventful drive when the truck veered out of its lane and into oncoming traffic and straight at a bus carrying the boys’ team. The bus driver was able to avoid a head-on collision, but the truck still hit it sideways, causing it to roll off the road.
An assistant track coach for the girls’ team who was following the bus in a car was not able to avoid the truck. It smashed into her car, killing her and the truck driver. The rest of the girls’ team was following a mile or two behind the lead bus and was not involved in the crash. The coach was memorialized with a special day of remembrance at the school a few days after the crash.
Another coach, who was on the bus, and one student were airlifted to a hospital at the time of the wreck. A second coach was later hospitalized, and both required surgery. At least two of those three victims have already left the hospital.
This was the second fatal crash in less than a month involving a Texas bus. Earlier in March, a tour bus from the Austin area got stuck on railroad tracks in Biloxi, Mississippi, and was struck by a freight train. Four were killed and about forty injured in that crash. In California, a small charter bus drifted out of its lane and crashed into two cars, killing one woman and leaving more than two dozen people hurt.
Those high-profile crashes followed another California tour bus crash in October that left thirteen dead and a terrible school bus crash in Tennessee that killed six children.
Despite these recent dramatic accidents, buses are still a very safe way to travel. Fewer than eighty bus passengers have been killed in any one of the past forty years, compared with more than 40,000 car occupants in some years. Still, as these crashes show, there is a risk of injury and death in a crash, which can be caused by the bus driver, another driver, or an external factor.
When you have been harmed or a loved one has been injured or killed in a bus or truck accident, it’s important to hold the responsible parties to account. You need the right help to succeed, and Colley & Colley, LLP, has extensive experience with both bus accident and truck accident cases. Give us a call today at 1-877-411-2001 or contact us online to schedule a free consultation to discuss your case and find out how we can help.
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