Carroll County irreparably scarred by crash By STAN BILLINGSLEY We note that Wednesday May l4 is the 20th anniversary of the terrible bus crash that occurred on Interstate 71 some 40 miles north of Louisville in l988. It did not happen in Carrollton. This incident should not be forgotten, and should forever be an example for a number of issues in addition to the improper combination of alcohol and impaired driving. I cringe a bit when it is called the “Carrollton” bus crash in the media. This incident is called the “Carrollton” bus crash only because it happened barely two miles inside Carroll County where Carrollton is the County seat. No one from Carroll County was involved in causing the crash. This crash was caused by a drunk driver from another county, and the victims were all from Hardin County. The people from Carroll County were involved in the wreck only as first responders, aid givers, rescuers, and the ones who cleaned up the scene. People from Carroll County comforted the mourners, provided initial medical care to the survivors, and prosecuted the guilty. Several citizens who lived near the crash risked their own personal safety in pulling survivors from the bus, and summoning additional assistance. I recall the efforts of Jimmy Dunn the Carroll County Cororner in providing his necessary services. I recall the outstanding work of our late Circuit Judge Charles Satterwhite who conducted one of the most highly reported jury trials in the history of Kentucky, and who made no errors, made no missteps, and gave the defendant a fair trial. Few people in this country and even in this state recall Judge Satterwhite’s efforts to provide a fair trial. He avoided any efforts to attract attention or publicity to himself, and this can’t be said of other judges in this country who have conducted trials which were so highly publicized. It always bothered me that the Kentucky Bar Association never recognized him for his flawless conduct of the trial. I expressed that thought to him on a number of occasions, but he shook it off and took it in stride. I remember the grief and pain experienced by those local responders who were involved in the grisly details of cleaning up the scene. I remember the pain and grief of the jurors who had to sit on this case. I don’t in any way mean to belittle or ignore the devastating consequences to the victims, to the families of those who were killed and those who were injured in this incident. It just occurs to me that there were a lot of people who were collateral victims of that wreck other than the ones usually recognized in the media. While this incident will always be rightfully cited as the worst incident involving a drunk driver in the history of the United States, it is unfortunate that little attention has been given in the media to the other contributing factors that caused the actual loss of life and numerous injuries to the passengers of the church bus which caught on fire. It is sometimes correctly mentioned in the press that the initial collision of the two vehicles did not cause the death of anyone. While the collision was the proximate cause of the fire, other factors played a major role in the high death and injury toll. The manufacturer of the bus was aware of the dangerous location of the gas tank, and its susceptibility to damage in a collision. The manufacturer did not provide enough safety exits, and the passenger’s windows could only open a few inches thereby denying a potential exit to all but two or three of the victims. The organizers of the bus trip allowed the bus to be overloaded, with some passengers sitting in the aisle using coolers as extra seats. These coolers blocked the only path to the rear exit. We should rightfully examine such events to try to make plans to prevent the same thing from happening again. In doing so let us not minimize the actual cause of the deaths and the injuries. The obvious and most important cause was a drunk driver, but for the drunk driver this incident would not have happened. Nevertheless, the use of an aged school bus by a church, the overloading of the bus, the lack of safety exits, and the blocking of the aisles leading to the exit were significant contributing factors that should never be minimized if we are to prevent similar incidents in the future. Kentucky has responded with new laws mandating more emergency exits in “school” buses. Incidents involving school bus deaths have continued in the 20 years since the “Church Bus Wreck”, one occurring just two weeks ago in Grant County, have encouraged new efforts to mandate seat belts for school buses. Perhaps it is time for federal regulation of school bus safety design. The practice of identifying the collision as the “Carrollton Bus Crash”, since Carrollton was the closest city to the incident, is just a short hand description of such incidents. That practice is not likely to change. But we should never forget that the people of Carroll County and of Carrollton, did not cause this crash, and without their efforts, there would have been more suffering and more death.
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