BASTROP COUNTY, Texas – Hays Independent School District has released two videos from cameras on a school bus involved in Friday’s deadly crash with a concrete truck.
One video shows the front of the bus as it’s driving in western Bastrop County, bringing pre-K students from Tom Green Elementary School and 11 adults home from a field trip to the Bastrop Zoo. The other video is from a camera on the side of the bus.
At 1:58 p.m. according to the time stamp on the video, an oncoming truck drifts across the double line in front of the bus. The bus driver steers to the right to try to avoid hitting the truck, but they collide head-on with the truck about halfway into the lane.
Out of sensitivity to the families involved, KSAT silenced the video we published and edited out the rollover portion of the video shortly after the moment of impact.
The unedited version of the video shows the bus rolling on its side and bus parts and papers from inside the bus scattering out onto the road. Following the crash, sounds of screaming and crying can be heard. The video then shows other motorists running toward the bus to help.
In a letter to families and staff, Hays ISD Spokesperson Tim Savoy explained why the district released the video saying that they were following the Texas Public Information Act.
You can read the letter below:
Investigators have not said what caused the driver of the concrete truck to veer out of his lane.
One student on the bus, 5-year-old Ulises Rodriguez Montoya was killed. A motorist in a Dodge Charger that struck the back of the bus was also killed. He was identified as UT student Ryan Wallace, 33, from Bastrop.
On Friday, Superintendent Eric Wright said a total of 51 were injured, including the bus driver. According to the Associated Press, four people in critical condition were airlifted from the crash site and several others were transported by ambulance. All students have since been released from area hospitals. The district said an early childhood education teacher has the most serious injuries and “will take time to recover.”
The district called the bus driver a hero.
“We will be forever indebted to her, and the other adults on the bus, who, though injured, placed the children above themselves and their own well-being. Dr. Wright said today of the bus driver and the other adults that, ‘their actions saved lives,’” the release states.
The bus didn’t have seatbelts because it was a 2011 model, Tim Savoy, a Hays school district spokesperson, told the newspaper. New buses have been fitted with belts since 2017, he said.
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