The Carrollton bus collision occurred on May 14, 1988, at Interstate 71 in Carroll County, Kentucky. Involving a used school bus used by church youth groups and a pickup truck driven by a flawed driver, a head-on collision was the deadliest incident involving drunk driving and the third deadliest bus accident in US history. Of the 67 people on the bus (counting the driver), there were 27 casualties in the accident, the same amount as the Prestonsburg bus disaster, Kentucky buses in 1958 and behind the 1976 Yuba City bus crash and the 1963 Chualar bus crash (32).
In the aftermath of the disaster, some members of the victim's family became Ms. Active Leader of Driving Drunk (MADD), and one (Karolyn Nunnallee) became the national president of the organization. Standards for operation and equipment for school buses and similar buses are improved in Kentucky and many other countries. This includes an increased number of emergency exits, higher standards for structural integrity, and the use of diesel fuel more volatile (more than gasoline). At Interstate 71, the crash site is marked with a road sign established by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC). To this day, commemorative objects such as crosses and flower arrangements are placed on site by family and friends.
Video Carrollton bus collision
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On May 14, 1988, a youth group made up of mostly teenagers attending North Hardin High School, James T. Alton Middle School, Radcliff Middle School and four adults from Assembly of God in Radcliff, Kentucky boarded their church activity bus and headed for to Kings Island theme park in Mason, Ohio (north of Cincinnati, about 170 miles from Radcliff). The group includes church members and invited guests. When everyone arrived early on that Saturday morning, those who wanted to continue the journey had grown to be more than anticipated. The main pastor of the church (who lives behind) limits the driver to the legal limit of 66 people plus the driver.
Bus
The church bus involved in the crash was a conventional body-on-chassis type school bus model. The 1977 Ford B700 school bus chassis is equipped with a Superior school bus body, modeled with 11 rows of seat width 39Ã, at (99Ã, cm) on both sides of the center axle 12Ã, inches (30Ã, cm) wide. The bus was ordered by the Kentucky School Department in 1976, as part of an order of over 600 units for districts across the state.
The chassis was built in the vast Kentucky Truck Plant and located in Louisville and then shipped to Lima, Ohio, where it was installed in the Superior Coach Company, a company owned by the Sheller-Globe Corporation industrial conglomerate. It was certified as a "school bus" with an effective development date "March 23, 1977," which when the chassis began production, as required by federal regulations. Both vehicle type and date of manufacture are important legal differences. March 23, just nine days before the fuel tank guard framework and greater access to emergency exits and a number of other improved safety standards, especially better room access to emergency exit at the rear, are required by federal regulations revised on all buses schools built for use in the US with the start of chassis production date on or after 1 April of that year.
The completed bus was delivered on time for use during the academic year 1977-78, and was used for ten years as a school bus. The Radcliff Assembly acquired the former school bus as a surplus from the school district of Meade County, and it has been owned by the church for about a year. In use with the church, the bus managed to make the round trip to Kings Island in July 1987, used daily for short local movements on school days, and has made several other long journeys. It was regularly checked by mechanically inclined church members, including the civil pool watchdog from nearby Fort Knox. Two new tires of good commercial quality had been installed a week before the ill-fated journey, and the front and steering suspensions were checked at the time. With all the indications, the bus was in good mechanical condition on May 14, 1988.
Travel
On the way, the bus was driven by John Pearman, a part-time church pastor who is a local court clerk. The group left the church early that morning and traveled smoothly to the park. They spent all day and afternoon at Kings Island, then boarded the bus and started traveling out of Ohio and back to Northern Kentucky to Radcliff. After about an hour, they stopped to fill the 60-gallon gas tank (227 liters) with gasoline, then continued south.
Collision
At 10:55 PM, heading south on Interstate 71 outside Carrollton, Kentucky, the bus collided almost with a black Toyota pickup truck that traveled the wrong way (north on the south line) at high speed on a curved stretch of highway. The little truck was driven by Larry Wayne Mahoney, a drunk 34-year-old factory worker.
The right front of the pickup truck hit the front right of the bus, disconnecting the bus suspension and moving the retractable leaf springs to the gas tank mounted behind the exterior panels but beyond the heavier frame, just behind the well for the front door. make door not working. Gas leaks from leaking fuel tanks are lit by sparks caused from metal parts from the erosion of suspensions along the road. Because the highly flammable polyurethane foam sheath and foam foam is turned on, the temperature in the bus rises to about 2,000 degrees and a thick cloud of dangerous smoke blanketing the area from the ceiling down to the level of seats in a minute or two creating an unquenchable flash flame. condition.
Evacuation difficulty
No one on the bus was badly hurt by the actual collision between two vehicles (although both drivers of the vehicle were injured). However, the impact of a collision creates a secondary situation, because the right front suspension of the Ford chassis is disconnected through the stepwell bus, piercing the fuel tank and fueling the fuel supply. To immediately evacuate the bus in smoke and darkness, all 67 people can only use a designated exit point: the rear emergency door. In total, 26 passengers and bus drivers died, 34 passengers were injured, and 6 passengers fled from the bus unscathed. Larry Mahoney, Toyota's pickup driver, suffered a collision injury.
Almost all bus passengers started trying out through a single rear emergency door. The exception was the driver, one of the companions said by many survivors to try to extinguish the fire with a bus fire extinguisher, and another companion, a smallish woman who managed to squeeze 9 in. X 24 in. (23 cm x 61 cm) open window on the left side immediately adjacent to his sitting position near the front. Of the four adults on the bus, he was the only survivor. Attempts by some other passengers to crack or kick one of the side-windows of the split-sash type did not work.
According to the NTSB investigation, over 60 people who tried to reach the only available exit - the rear emergency door - created a body crawl in a 12-inch (30 cm) aisle. Many passengers find themselves unable to move. A refrigeration drink previously placed in the aisle near line 10 (of 11 rows of seats) further exacerbates this problem.
Passers-by and some escaped passengers help remove the immobilized children through the back door, and help them to the ground about 3 feet (1 m) below. Soon the entire passage of the bus passed, eventually burning the 27 trapped men left on board. At that time, no more passengers were accessible from outside the bus. Emergency vehicles have not arrived yet.
Post-collision
When the first fire occurred shortly after the collision, John Pearman's bus driver tried to extinguish it with a small fire extinguisher while passengers began to flee through the rear back door of the center, pressing through a narrow gap between the two back seats and jumping about 3 times. feet to the ground. The front door was blocked by collision damage, and no emergency exit or hatching windows, such as those found on commercial buses and several school buses at the time. Only one adult, a small woman, managed to escape through a nine-inch side window. When he looks back from the ground, the window openings are filled with fire. Three other adults, including Pearman, died.
Survivors claimed that after emptying a small fire extinguisher, Pearman helped some of the many children find their way in a narrow, dark passageway to the only practical way out of the smoke-filled bus. Some of the older boys were trying to kick out the side windows with no results. Passenger piles are formed in and adjacent to a twelve-inch hallway leading to the back door, which is partially obstructed by the back of the seat from the last row and the cooler stored in the aisle near row 10.
Many of those who made it to the area adjacent to the back door were clamped so tightly that passers-by helped to pull the children out of the human jam at the rear door of the emergency room by force. However, within four minutes or less, the entire bus was on fire, and soon the passenger exodus ceased. At that time, passers-by who stopped to help could not reach those who were still on board because of the raging fire, and changed their efforts to care for the 40 most injured victims.
Emergency response
After a Kentucky County Police Rescue, Rescue, and Police fire responded to the scene, caring for and carrying survivors, and putting out fires, the cranes were used to load buses to pickup trucks carrying buses and people killed in the National Guard at Carrollton. There, KSP and coroner Carroll County went through the interior of a bus seat with chairs to find and remove corpses. Most of the corpses burned beyond recognition. Many bodies were found facing the sole exit, the back door. The coroner then decided that no bus passenger suffered a broken bone or severe injury from a collision; all died of fire and smoke.
Among survivors, one leg of a person just below the knee should be amputated, and about ten others suffer from a devastating burn. Only 6 passengers on the bus are unharmed and almost all suffer from emotional trauma and survival guilt syndrome. When the authorities were able to calculate the number of hospitals and corpses on the bus, and an autopsy was conducted, it was determined that 27 people had been killed by the fire, and another 34 had boarded an injured bus, as well as a truck driver who was also wounded. In February 2010, this collision had the highest number of deaths and injuries from any school bus accident in US history; The accident near Prestonsburg, Kentucky in 1958 also claimed 27 lives, but there were not many additional injuries.
Maps Carrollton bus collision
Aftermath
NTSB report
The National Transportation Safety Council responded, conducted an investigation and issued a report on March 28, 1989.
At about 10:55 pm EDT on May 14, 1988, a pickup truck that traveled north on the southern route of Interstate 71 struck a church activity bus that traveled south on the left lane of the highway near Carrollton, Kentucky. When the pickup truck was rotated during a collision, the vehicle hit a passenger car that drove south on the right lane near the church bus. The church bus's fuel tank was stabbed during the collision sequence, and a fire ensued, blanketing the entire bus. Bus drivers and 26 bus passengers were seriously injured. Thirty-four bus passengers suffered minor injuries to the point, and six bus passengers were unharmed. The pickup truck driver suffered serious injuries, but no passengers on the passenger car were injured.
The NTSB stipulates that "the probable cause of a collision between a pickup truck and a church activity bus is a condition of alcohol disturbance from a pickup truck driver operating his vehicle against the direction of traffic flow on interstate highways."
School bus and church bus standards and rules
Factors contributing to the accident itself and severity seem to be a gap between the law and procedures for school buses and those involving the same vehicle after being excluded from school services, but continue to be used to transport passengers in non-school use. (Whether the bus was built in March 1977 for non-school use such as church activity buses, federal federal vehicle standards prevailing at that time would require it to be built with more emergency exits than required for school buses). One NTSB recommendation after the Carrollton Bus Disaster was that the school bus did not have fewer emergency exits than required non-school buses.
Some states also require that the normally different seating capacity for children and adults is displayed near the door of the school bus service and non-school bus. Most countries consider high school students (middle and upper) age to become adults associated with the space occupied in the bus seats and aisles by their bodies.
Punishment Larry Mahoney
Mahoney has been arrested for DUI before. Her blood alcohol concentration (BAC) the night of the accident. 24 percent - substantially more than the Kentucky law limit of 1988 of 0.10. Mahoney did not remember the accident and learned of a collision after waking up in the hospital the next day.
He was sentenced to 16 years in prison after the Carroll Circuit Court jury, under Deed No. 38. 88-CR-27, sentenced him to 27 counts of second-degree murder, 16 counts of second-level attacks, and 27 counts of naughty abandonment at the first level. In court, he was represented by Cleveland, Ohio, criminal lawyer William L. Summers. On appeal, in Case No. 1988-CA-1635, Judge Anthony M. Wilhoit of the Kentucky Court of Appeal overturned Mahoney's conviction of drunk driving on the grounds that it was a double danger under the Kentucky Constitution, which ruled that 27 murders killed at the second level included drunk driving convictions. The court ruled that, under Kentucky law, drunk driving elements were substantially similar to ordinary killings. This meant that Mahoney's driving license could be restored, even during his imprisonment. The Kentucky Supreme Court then reversed this line of thought in another case, Justice v. Commonwealth , 987 S.W.2d 306 (Ky. December 17, 1998). On May 6, 1992, the Kentucky Supreme Court refused to review Mahoney's appeal in Case No. 1992-SC-98.
At Kentucky State Reformatory, Mahoney works in a medium-sized security facility as a janitor. He earned his GED high school equivalency diploma and participated in the Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous program. Described by the authorities as a model prisoner, Mahoney reduced his six-year detention with good behavior, known under Kentucky law as a "good time" credit. He rejected the Kentucky Parole Board parole recommendation and served his sentence, before leaving the prison at La Grange, on September 1, 1999, after serving 10 years and 11 months. The local television station broadcast videos about him walking out of jail.
That week, according to a report published in The Courier-Journal Louisville, survivors of several casualties and families of victims said they were willing to forgive Mahoney despite the catastrophe marking the congregation of the First Assembly of God , which has many members on the bus. "I feel a little sorry for her", Katrina Henderson, 23, told The Courier-Journal in 1998. "She did not wake up one day and said," I'm going to kill 27 people. 'That's not to make any mistakes from him. I think he is the one who made some very bad choices and he pays for that option, "said Henderson, who was 12 years old when he survived the accident. Victims are members of the church, and many feel called by their religious beliefs to forgive them.
During his trial, the idea was discussed that Mahoney could save lives by talking to school groups, but Mahoney has so far refused.
According to the story by The Cincinnati Enquirer in 2003, Mahoney lives in self-imposed obscurity in rural Owen County, Kentucky, about ten miles (16 km) from the crash site.
MADD and drunk driving prevention
The collision focused the nation on the subject of an unprecedented drunk driving and has been partially credited with causing a steady decline in the number of alcohol-related deaths.
One of the victims, the youngest killed on a fatal bus, was a ten-year-old Patricia, "Patty" Susan Nunnallee. Patty's mother Karolyn Nunnallee became an active member of MADD after the accident, which eventually became the national president of MADD. Patty's mother wrote on the MADD warning page to Patty: They were traveling on a school bus, so I thought she'd be safe.
Janey Fair, whose 14-year-old daughter Shannon died, became a national volunteer for MADD, and rose up in the organization to become a member of the Board of Directors. He is also the head of the Kentucky Victim Coalition. According to the MADD website, "MADD helps me find my inner strength and see that life can keep going," says Janey. "I've found that I can make a real difference in people's attitude about drinking and driving and how our government handles this critical issue and I can help other victims move forward in their lives." Her husband is also active locally in MADD.
Joy Williams, wife of Lee Williams, a pastor in the church, and their two young daughters, Christians and Robins, were among those killed. Dotty Pearman's husband, John Pearman is an associate pastor at the church and bus driver, was also killed when their daughter, Christy, was involved in an accident and survived.
In the year after the accident, Lee Williams and Dotty Pearman, who barely knew each other before the accident, became friends and eventually married.
Lee and Dotty Williams are also volunteers for MADD. Lee is a former chairman of the MADD chapter in Hardin County, Kentucky, and Dotty is the current president. The couple often talks with school groups, helps with health exhibitions and participates in other local events. "If I can persuade one person to not drink and drive, I've won," Dotty said. "I especially think it's important to educate children early on about the dangers of drinking and driving.We need to address alcohol problems with teenagers before it becomes a problem."
Changes in Kentucky
Kentucky now requires that all school buses have nine emergency exits - more than federal or other state standards. These include front and rear doors, side doors, four emergency windows and two roof exits. The falling bus at Carrollton has only front and rear exits, and 11 rows of 39 seats, including an important area near the rear door.
Buses used by Kentucky schools should also have a cage around the fuel tank, a stronger frame and roof to withstand collisions and rollovers, high-back chairs, extra seat cushions, fuel leak-proof systems, fire and floor. , reflective tape on all emergency exit doors, black bands wide 8 "with district names in white letters on the side, and strobe lights outside Schools must also have diesel-powered fleet (Unlike gasoline, diesel is not flammable.)
In 1991, Kentucky imposed drunk driving laws.
src: images.schoolbusfleet.com
Media coverage
Among many media agencies providing comprehensive coverage, The Courier-Journal of Louisville, Kentucky received the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for News Reporting for its coverage.
Following the NTSB report, and faster in many instances, many federal, state, and local agencies and bus manufacturers changed the rules, vehicle features, and operating practices.
Mothers Against Drunk Driving, a grassroots organization, works both before and after the accident at Carrollton to reduce the danger created by drunk drivers (or drinking). Two Carrollton victims' mothers became national presidents and vice presidents of the organization.
There is considerable civil litigation. Ford Motor Company, the Sheller-Globe Corporation, and others ultimately contribute to the settlement with all their victims and/or families.
Collisions and consequences, including attempts by some families to get over finance settlements, are noted by author James S. Kunen in his 1994 Reckless Disregard: Corporate Greed, Government Indifference, and Kentucky School Bus Crash.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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