Driver Gilbert Pena, although critically injured, managed to save several children hurt when a truck plowed into his school bus, forcing it into a water-filled gravel pit and killing 19 students.
Pena was one of four survivors in critical condition early Friday at Mission Hospital.Nineteen students were killed and 67 people were injured in the crash, described by the National Transportation Safety Board as the third worst bus accident in U.S. history. The crashes that killed 29 in Martinez, Calif., in May 1976 and 27 in Kentucky in May 1988 were worse.
Some of the young survivors managed to crawl out bus windows or were pulled out by Pena as the bus filled with water, officials said.
"He was injured and yet he was rescuing them. He was responsible for pulling a lot of them out of the bus," said Mission Mayor Pat Townsend.
The Rev. George Gonzalez, of Iglesia Bautista del Pueblo in Mission, visited Pena in the hospital.
"He was in pain. He couldn't talk," Gonzalez said, adding that survivors told him Pena "had done all he could until he passed out."
"I knew there were people who were dead," said Maria Teresa Reyes, 13, who suffered a broken wrist and bump on her head. "People on top of the bus were pulling out other people. Their faces were blue. They were dead."
A soft-drink delivery truck drove through a stop sign and crashed broadside into the bus, carrying 80 Mission Consolidated School District students ranging in age from 12 to 17, as it was on its way to school.
"According to the driver, his brakes failed," said DPS Sgt. Israel Pacheco.
A nine-member NTSB team arrived at the scene late Thursday and began its investigation.
The impact of the accident drove the bus off a 30-foot cliff into a gravel pit containing 15 feet of water, the DPS said.
Firefighters dived into the wreckage, which eventually settled under water, and rescuers threw life jackets, lowered ladders from the top of the cliff and used rowboats in an attempt to save the children.
Most of the victims were believed to have drowned, Pacheo said.
A crowd of about 1,000 people gathered on the cliff above the pit, and parents, relatives and passersby watched in horror as divers pulled out lifeless children.
"They were shocked. They were angry. They were crying," said the Rev. Frank Quezado, a Roman Catholic priest from San Juan who helped console the families of the victims.
Two Mission churches held memorial services Thursday night. Rev. Gonzalez presided at one.
"It wasn't a funeral service. It was more a service of gratitude for those who survived," he said.
DPS spokesman Mike Cox called it the worst school bus mishap in Texas history and the third-worst traffic accident since the state began keeping records in 1939.
The accident happened about 7:40 a.m. on a narrow rural road near Alton, about 4 miles from Mission near the Mexico border.
School was canceled and a football game called off Friday.
"We're going to miss 'em. It'll be a sad time for the school for a while," said Mission Fire Marshal Lucio S. Guerra Jr., fighting back tears. "Every time they get on the bus now, they'll remember it."
School board member Rosalinda Gonzalez said the reaction of school officials was "total awe of what had occurred."