Harvard University impressed Alana Merrigan. The campus was awesome. The people were cool. She had so much to tell her parents about the trip when she got home.
The Bristol Township teen had so much to dream about, too, during the six-hour ride back to Bucks County on Saturday night. She slipped easily into sleep aboard the charter bus.
Then that horrible crunching noise above her startled her awake. The bus roof was caving in. She was thrown forward into the next row of seats. When she opened her eyes, she saw only the blackness around her.
Somehow the 17-year-old found her cellphone and called her mom, Teresa.
“The roof is on top of us,” she said.
The Bucks County Technical High School junior was among 42 passengers — including students from Middletown and Bristol Township — aboard the bus when it slammed into a bridge in Boston, hours after the group had visited Harvard’s Cambridge campus as part of an educational day trip.
Massachusetts State Police have not released the names or addresses of adults aboard the Calvary Charter bus for the trip sponsored by Destined for a Dream, a Bristol nonprofit educational foundation. The names of juveniles will not be released, the state police added.
But at Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church in Penndel on Sunday, parishioners were asked to pray for two teen boys who were aboard the bus, according to sources and the parish’s Facebook page.
The Rev. James DeGrassa told parishioners during the 10 a.m. Mass that one of the boys, Matt Cruz, suffered a severe neck injury. The priest said he had spoken to the boy’s grandmother just before Mass and learned that the teen was about to go into surgery.
DeGrassa asked the congregation to pray for Matt and he led the congregation in reciting the Hail Mary.
“This news is really hard,” added a Neshaminy parent, who didn’t want to be identified, but whose daughter knows the injured Neshaminy sophomore. “As a parent I’m an emotional wreck and just devastated that kids were hurt.”
Bristol Township School District Superintendent Sam Lee confirmed that he was told at least a few students in his district were aboard the bus, but they apparently had only minor injuries.
“It’s terrible any way you cut it,” he added.
The parent of a Conwell-Egan Catholic student — who was a trip chaperone — reportedly also suffered serious broken bones. An official at Bucks County Technical High School in Bristol Township on Sunday also confirmed that two students were on the bus trip.
All but four people were injured when the bus, which was headed back to Bristol, slammed into the Western Avenue Bridge on Soldier’s Field Road shortly before 8 p.m. Saturday, state police said.
Roughly half the passengers suffered minor injuries and were treated and released, police said. Seven others were taken to Massachusetts General, three to the New England Medical Center, and three to Brigham & Women’s Hospital.
The most seriously injured passenger was taken to Boston Medical Center. Police only described that person’s injures as severe. Police did not say if the injured person was an adult or teen.
The National Transportation Safety Board has been contacted and it may send representatives to assist in the state police investigation into the crash. The bridge has no structural damage and no safety concerns were identified, state police said.
On Sunday, troopers from the Massachusetts State Police Commercial Motor Vehicle Enforcement section conducted a through examination of the bus with troopers from the Collision Analysis and Reconstruction section. More than 20 victims on the bus were interviewed, state police said in an email media update.
Their crash investigation will look at factors including how long the bus driver — identified as Samuel Jackson, 66, of Philadelphia — was operating the bus Saturday before the crash occurred. The report is expected to take two to six weeks to finish, police said.
A preliminary investigation shows that Jackson — who was not injured — failed to observe and follow signs warning of a 10-foot height limit on Soldier’s Field Road. He likely will be cited for an overhead violation, but could face more serious charges, police said.
Ray Talmedge, owner of the Philadelphia-based Calvary Coach Bus company, says that Jackson looked down at his GPS and saw the bridge too late. Talmedge, who said he didn’t know anything about the road restrictions, said Jackson also drives a school bus.
The newspaper was unsuccessful Sunday in reaching Destined for a Dream founder Erica Waller-Hill, a 1995 Harry S. Truman High School graduate. But on her Facebook page Sunday afternoon, Waller-Hill thanked people for their prayers and words of encouragement.
The charter bus suffered significant damage in the crash. The front part of the roof was pushed in while the center section bowed downward. Firefighters removed at least four trapped passengers out of the mangled roof. The last victim was freed around 9 p.m. Saturday, according to the department.
On Sunday evening as many trip-goers headed back to Bucks County, Alana Merrigan and her parents waited for X-ray scan results in the emergency room at St. Mary Medical Center in Middletown.
Teresa Merrigan said her husband and son drove from their Bristol Township home to Boston late Saturday to pick up Alana, who she said was diagnosed with a concussion and swollen ankle. She was among the nearly two dozen passengers treated and released in Boston.
“She is in a lot of pain, her head is really hurting,” Merrigan said. “She is a little shook up.”
Merrigan is too.
She had texted her daughter — who studies Allied Health at the Bristol Township tech school — around 7 p.m. Saturday night to get an idea of what she was doing and when she’d be home. Alana has been involved with Destined for a Dream for a few months, Merrigan said.
About an hour later, Merrigan’s cellphone rang again. This time her husband answered it. He heard screaming, crying and yelling behind his daughter’s panicked voice telling him the bus roof had collapsed.
“We didn’t know, did the bus roll over,” Teresa said. “I kept saying is anything broken, are you bleeding. I was a nervous wreck.”
Her daughter was seated in the rear of the bus in the row in front of the bathroom, which Teresa believes helped protect her during the impact. The emergency exit was just above her seat.
Alana told her mom that she helped about six or seven people out of the emergency exit before pulling herself through the hatch, Merrigan said.
Jo Ciavaglia: 215-949-4181; email: jciavaglia@phillyBurbs.com; Twitter: @jociavaglia
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| Victims of the Boston bus accident arriving in Bristol |
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