NEW ORLEANS -- The driver of a charter bus that crashed on Mother's Day, killing 22 people, had been fired twice in the past decade for marijuana use and tested positive for the drug shortly after the deadly wreck, federal investigators said.
Custom Bus Charters driver Frank Bedell, 46, lost bus driving jobs in 1989 and 1996 after tests showed he had used marijuana, the National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday.A federal investigator also confirmed that Bedell, who has congestive heart disease, kidney problems and diabetes, tested positive for marijuana when he was hospitalized Sunday after the bus veered off a highway and plunged down an embankment.
It was not clear how long before the crash Bedell might have smoked marijuana or whether the drug contributed to the accident, said NTSB investigator Ken Suydam.
"It's another piece of the puzzle we have to put together," Suydam said.
Bedell tested positive for marijuana while employed as a city bus driver in New Orleans and in suburban Jefferson Parish.
Sometime after being hired in New Orleans in 1976, Bedell was given a drug test because he had been absent for work for eight days, Suydam said. After testing positive for marijuana, Bedell spent several months attending classes in an employee assistance program.
But he later tested positive again for the drug and was fired in March 1989, Suydam said.
In 1992, Bedell was hired as a driver for suburban buses. He failed a marijuana drug test the next year, Suydam said. Bedell spent two months in a drug rehabilitation program, but tested positive again for the drug in 1996 and was terminated a week later.
Authorities previously said he tested positive for cocaine in 1997 after applying for a job with Greyhound.
But Bedell passed at least three drug tests while working for Custom Bus Charters, the company that provided the bus for the Mother's Day gambling excursion to a Mississippi casino.
Custom president Donna Begovich said in a statement Thursday that she was shocked to learn Bedell tested positive for marijuana after the crash.