This time, it's Mountainburg, in northwest Arkansas. Three more dead kids. They didn't die because a semi broad-sided their school bus. The semi hit the right rear axle, but the kids were sitting on the driver's side in the rear half of the bus. They died because they got tossed through the air, from one side of the bus to the other. One kid went halfway through a window and was crushed to death when the bus rolled over on top of him as he was half in and half out. The other two died of injuries after their bodies were slammed into very hard objects on the other side of the bus from where they were sitting. They all would surely be alive today, had their seats been equipped with safety belts and had they been wearing them.
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This latest needlessly fatal school bus accident occurred on May 31st, in Mountainburg, Arkansas. Mountainburg is located 8 miles north of Interstate 40 at a point 17 miles east of the border with Oklahoma. That's 35 degrees 37 minutes North latitude and 94 degrees 10 minutes West longitude.
Most of the details about this incident were obtained from reports that appeared during the past two weeks in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, which is the leading daily newspaper in the state.
A semi was loaded with soybean meal. It weighed 79,000 pounds. I think that the legal maximum for semis is 80,000 pounds. The semi took the State Route 282 - Mountainburg exit off Interstate 540, a brand-new expressway that just opened in the last couple of years. The exit ramp has a 9 degree slope. All of the brakes on the semi were bad, both on the tractor and on the trailer. It couldn't stop. It ran the stop sign at about 40 miles per hour, just as a school bus with nine kids aboard was passing through the intersection at about 45 mph.
The truck hit the right rear axle of the school bus. The collision knocked the bus thirty feet sideways before the bus cabin separated from its chassis and flipped over onto its side. The semi also overturned.
As usual, the bus cabin remained essentially intact, so the boys who died weren't killed by the truck crushing them to death. Rather, they were catapulted through the air until their heads and bodies slammed into something very hard.
Elwin Rhoads was 15. He went through the window and was crushed to death. That surely would not have happened to him if he was restrained in his seat by a three-point seat belt.
Tracy Foster was 16. Tracy was talking to rescuers on the scene after the accident, and would have walked to the ambulance if he had been allowed to do so, but was put on a back-board to be transported to the hospital. He died in surgery later that same day. Sounds to me like internal injuries from being body-slammed, just like model Niki Taylor suffered around April 30th in the Atlanta area when she was in a car accident and almost died. Taylor walked away from the accident, before collapsing in pain from internal injuries that probably resulted from improperly wearing her seat belt. Tracy surely would not have died of internal injuries if he was restrained in his seat by a properly-worn three-point seat belt, instead of being slammed into a seat back or some other part of the bus.
Sean LaRue was 14. He suffered fatal brain injuries from being catapulted through the bus after the truck hit it. That surely would not have happened to him if he was restrained in his seat by a three-point seat belt. He was taken off life support on June 6th, six days after the accident.
Bobby Huff is 15. He was listed in critical condition for two weeks. Within the last couple of days, he was upgraded to serious condition. He, too, probably suffered severe head injuries and will likely be a brain damaged cripple for the rest of his life.
None of these injuries had to happen. Sure, there are always going to be traffic accidents involving moving vehicles colliding into each other, but that's why we need 3-point seat belts to protect passengers in moving vehicles, and not just in cars, but in school busses, inter-city busses like Greyhound, railroad trains like Amtrak and even paddy (police patrol) wagons.
Compartmentalization only creates the illusion of safety. If you don't believe me, just ask Elwin's mom, or Tracy's mom, or Sean's mom, or Bobby's mom. When passengers are loose in the box, such as students on school busses without seat belts, you are going to get tossed about upon impact and slammed really hard into something. It might be your head that takes the full force of the impact, causing severe or fatal brain damage. It might be your gut, smashing your internal organs and causing severe or fatal injuries. You might even get catapulted partially or completely out of the vehicle, in which case you get to watch yourself being killed in agonizing, excrutiatingly painful slow motion as the vehicle topples over on top of you. You won't die instantly. You'll have the life squeezed out of you as you can't inflate your lungs because the bus or truck or train is lying on top of your chest. Or, you'll watch yourself bleed to death as the blood drains out of the legs or arms that have been severed by the vehicle, and you can't do anything about it because the vehicle is lying on top of you, crushing you so you can't move as you become faint from loss of blood, knowing that this is the end of your life through no fault of your own.
Why do we continue to allow this to happen to anybody, but especially to our children? It's not like we can't protect them from these kinds of catastrophes. We can protect them.
These are preventable deaths and preventable injuries. The technology exists to protect passengers from being catapulted to horrific and terrifying severe and fatal injuries. All it takes is a few dollars and political will.
Arkansas State Representative Mike Creekmore (a Democrat, of course) tried to do something about it. He sponsored House Bill 1134 in the General Assembly during this year's session. The Bill died in the House Education Committee one month ago, today. Elwin and Travis died two weeks ago, today. Sean died eight days ago, today. Those members of the House Education Committee must be really proud of themselves for their wisdom on this issue.
Now I'm going to do something about it. Perhaps you will join my effort and help me to do something about it. I know you're busy, and that you don't have a lot of time to get involved and do stuff, but maybe you'll help to finance my efforts to get three-point seat belts on school busses. We must stop allowing our kids to be killed by easily preventable injuries that result from being catapulted through school busses during accidents. We need seat belts. Now.
Watch this space. I'll tell you what I'm doing and how you can help.
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