KNOXVILLE — The first member of a dozen North Carolina church congregants injured in a bus crash that killed eight people was released Friday from the University of Tennessee Medical Center. Brenda Jolly, 70, was released from the hospital, according to UT Medical Center spokeswoman Susan Wyatt. Another church member, Ed Mclelland, 64, was upgraded Friday from serious condition to stable, Wyatt said. Mclelland’s wife, 62-year-old Marsha Mclelland, died in the Wednesday crash on Interstate 40. That leaves 11 church members ranging in age from 62 to 74 at the hospital. The Tennessee Highway Patrol on Friday identified the trucker killed in the fiery crash as 66-year-old Mose Farmer of New Orleans. Farmer was driving a 2014 Volvo tractor hauling a trailer loaded with paper towels. The driver of a North Carolina church bus that careened from eastbound Interstate 40 and into oncoming westbound traffic had a valid commercial vehicle license, authorities said. But years of driving experience couldn’t match a 40,000-pound bus gouging into the roadway and catapulting into two other vehicles. “It’s extremely, extremely difficult to maintain control of that bus after the (wheel) rim hit and was pulling it in that direction,” said Tennessee Highway Patrol Sgt. Bill Miller. The Highway Patrol on Thursday identified the bus driver as Randolph Morrison. He and his wife, Barbara Morrison, both 66, were among the six who died on the bus that crashed into an SUV and a tractor-trailer. The couple’s son Ronnie Morrison spoke briefly with reporters Thursday at the University of Tennessee Medical Center. He said his father for years had driven the bus owned by Front Street Baptist Church of Statesville, N.C. According to the North Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles, Randolph Morrison had a Class A commercial driver’s license, the highest-rated CDL in North Carolina. His wife, a retired school bus driver, had a Class B commercial driver’s license. Investigators said Thursday in a news conference that they are focusing on a tire malfunction as the possible cause of the crash. The bus was carrying senior citizens ranging in age from 62 to 95 from a Christian festival in Gatlinburg back to North Carolina when the crash occurred at about 2 p.m. Wednesday. The senior church group is called Young at Heart. *Chaotic scene The bus was eastbound near mile marker 423 in Jefferson County when it crossed the median. Investigators are confident that the left front tire failed because the rim left gouge marks in the I-40 eastbound asphalt, Miller said. He said it appears the bus struck the 100-gallon diesel fuel saddle tank on the westbound tractor-trailer, causing the fire. “That is a very strong possibility,” Miller said. “The impact led to the explosion and fire.” Flames quickly spread through the B.A.H. Express Inc. trailer that was hauling paper products and paper towels. First responders said the driver of the rig was not extricated before flames consumed the truck cab. Miller said the driver is from Louisiana, but a positive identification has not yet been made. The bodies of all those killed were taken to the Regional Forensic Center in Knoxville. When Cocke County Sheriff Armando Fontes arrived at the crash scene, he knew it was a catastrophic event. “The accident scene itself was horrific. It was obvious there were multiple fatalities with bodies scattered across the interstate and in the median,” he said. The sheriff said there was a massive amount of debris, firefighters were battling a fire and several people were being treated by emergency medical personnel. One thing the sheriff said they didn’t realize initially was that the SUV involved in the crash was towing a boat. “We saw the trailer frame but no boat because the impact of the accident disintegrated it,” he said. “You could not tell it was there.” Brad Phillips, director of the Jefferson County Emergency Management Agency, said “over a hundred” emergency personnel from at least 20 agencies from Jefferson, Grainger, Knox, Hamblen, Sevier and Cocke counties converged on the scene. “There were some people entrapped in the bus,” Phillips said. Besides the six on the bus, a 24-year-old man in the Chevrolet Tahoe hauling the boat was killed as was the rig driver. Miller declined to say where the trucker began his route or its destination. A person at the Atlanta office of B.A.H. Express on Thursday said a company representative was in Knoxville to claim the driver’s remains, but the company is not speaking with the media. Susan Wyatt, a spokeswoman with the University of Tennessee Medical Center, said the facility initially received 14 patients from the crash. Two men in the Tahoe were released Thursday. Of the remaining patients, Wyatt said, two on Thursday were in critical condition, five were serious and five were stable. *RECONSTRUCTING THE CRASH The Knoxville man killed in the Tahoe, Trent Roberts, was in the back seat and was ejected when the SUV began rolling on I-40, according to a first responder. He apparently was not using a seat belt while the Tahoe driver and front-seat passenger were using seat belts and did not sustain major injuries, according to the first responder. The interstate was shut down for about 15 hours, reopening at about 5 a.m. Thursday. Tennessee Highway Patrol investigators with the Critical Incident Response Teams from Nashville and Knoxville completed their probe at about midnight and turned the scene over to the Tennessee Department of Transportation. CIRT Investigator Lt. Andy Shelton said the group used laser equipment to map the crash scene. Miller said all the data collected by the CIRT investigators will be entered into a computer program “to get a very accurate picture of the accident.” Preliminary investigation shows that the bus ran across the grassy median after losing the tire and entered the westbound lanes. Miller said the bus first struck the rear driver’s side of the Tahoe and then slammed into the tractor-trailer rig. Miller said the Tahoe and the commercial rig were in the right-hand lane at the time of impact. The impact between the bus and the tractor-trailer rig ripped the front off the bus, which then flipped onto its right side. The bus continued to spin in the roadway on its side until the rear of the bus came to rest against the burning trailer, authorities said. Mark Nagi, regional spokesman for TDOT, said “we used our heavy equipment to load the wreckage onto our trailers and transported that wreckage off site.” “We swept the roadway and cleaned the site and cut three trees that were damaged from the truck fire that could have fallen at a later time,” Nagi said. After removing all the portable message boards set up to detour traffic around the crash scene, TDOT reopened the road that averages about 38,000 vehicles a day. There are no cable barriers on the eastbound side of the interstate, but the westbound side is equipped with the devices designed to stop vehicles from crossing the interstate. Miller, however, said the 40,000-pound bus went right through the barriers. “At 70 mph the bus is going to win out over the cables,” Miller said. The bus was outfitted with seat belts, Miller said. He said state investigators will work with their counterparts in North Carolina to determine if the bus had been properly maintained. The seat belts did not hinder rescue attempts, according to Phillips, because rescuers simply cut the devices to free the victims. A first responder said rescuers had no trouble getting to the victims in the bus because with the front of the bus torn away, emergency personnel could enter the bus almost standing up. Witnesses at the crash Wednesday knelt on the side of the road, saying prayers. Passers-by stopped to give aid to bleeding victims before emergency crews arrived. More details as they develop online and in Saturday’s News Sentinel. *Name of victims Church Bus Fatalities Cloyce Matheny (M), 95, Statesville, N.C. Brenda Smith, 69, Statesville, N.C. Marsha Mclelland, 62, Statesville, N.C. (wife of injured Ed Mclelland) Barbara Morrison, 66, Statesville, N.C. (wife of Randy Morrison) Randy Morrison (Driver), 66, Statesville, N.C. (husband of Barbara Morrison) John Wright, 73, Mocksville, N.C. *Church Bus Injuries Thomas L. Smith, 74, Statesville, N.C., Serious condition Joanna L. Elledge, 70, Statesville, N.C., Critical condition Benny Elledge, 72, Statesville, N.C., Serious condition Sandra Boyer, 67, Statesville, N.C., Stable condition Marvin Boyer, 74, Statesville, N.C., Critical condition Doris Swaim, 68, Statesville, N.C., Stable condition Steven Swaim, 68, Statesville, N.C., Stable condition Norma J. Hellard, 78, Statesville, N.C., Serious condition Beverly Wright, 62, Mocksville, N.C., Serious condition Brenda Jolly, 70, Statesville, N.C., Discharged Friday Wanda Martin, 63, Statesville, N.C., Stable condition Ed Mclelland, 64, Statesville, N.C. (husband of deceased Marsha Mclelland), Stable condition *Chevrolet Tahoe Fatality Trent Roberts (rear passenger), 24, Knoxville, Tenn. *Chevrolet Tahoe Injuries Tim Wacker (front passenger), 28, Knoxville, Tenn., Discharged Jordan D. Payne (M) (Driver), 24, Knoxville, Tenn., Discharged © 2013 Knoxville News Sentinel. All rights reserved.
Posted on: Sat, 05 Oct 2013 02:32:50 +0000
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