MARTINEZ, CA - (UPI)
The bus trip was to have been a reward for the Yuba City High School choir and its last outing before the summer vacation, but it ended in sudden, violent death for 27 of the youngsters and an adult chaperone.
The bus slammed through a bridge approach guard rail near here Friday, hurtled 30 feet and landed on its top in marsh. There were the anguished moans of the living. Arms and legs protruded from shattered windows.
"It was horrible," Larry Beaty, 32 a Shell Oil Company employee who witnessed the crash, said.
A spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board said it was the worst such bus accident and worst highway crash in the United States since 1967, when the board was set up.
The driver, Evan Prothero, 50, of Olivehurst, and 23 other youngsters suffered serious injuries. All were taken to four nearby hospitals.
Special teams of surgeons and nurses came from other Bay Area hospitals to help.
The choir had been scheduled to perform at Miramonte High School in nearby Orinda in exchange for a Miramonte music group's appearance in Yuba City earlier this year. The trip was to have been a reward for the group's year-long work.
An automobile leading the bus carried music teacher Dean Estabrook, 35, and three others. his wife Christina was on the bus. She died. He saw the accident through a rear view mirror.
"It all happened too fast," the shaken teacher said. He was admitted to a hospital for shock.
Beaty described the crash this way: "Suddenly a big cloud of dust went up, the bus leaned over, hit the rail and its wheels went up. Then it dropped over and landed directly on its top."
Beaty said he and a co-worker pulled some of the living from the tangled wreckage.
Highway Patrolman Dan Ackerman, one of the first officers on the scene, said, "I heard a lot of kids moaning."
The bus trip was to have been a reward for the Yuba City High School choir and its last outing before the summer vacation, but it ended in sudden, violent death for 27 of the youngsters and an adult chaperone.
The bus slammed through a bridge approach guard rail near here Friday, hurtled 30 feet and landed on its top in marsh. There were the anguished moans of the living. Arms and legs protruded from shattered windows.
"It was horrible," Larry Beaty, 32 a Shell Oil Company employee who witnessed the crash, said.
A spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board said it was the worst such bus accident and worst highway crash in the United States since 1967, when the board was set up.
The driver, Evan Prothero, 50, of Olivehurst, and 23 other youngsters suffered serious injuries. All were taken to four nearby hospitals.
Special teams of surgeons and nurses came from other Bay Area hospitals to help.
The choir had been scheduled to perform at Miramonte High School in nearby Orinda in exchange for a Miramonte music group's appearance in Yuba City earlier this year. The trip was to have been a reward for the group's year-long work.
An automobile leading the bus carried music teacher Dean Estabrook, 35, and three others. his wife Christina was on the bus. She died. He saw the accident through a rear view mirror.
"It all happened too fast," the shaken teacher said. He was admitted to a hospital for shock.
Beaty described the crash this way: "Suddenly a big cloud of dust went up, the bus leaned over, hit the rail and its wheels went up. Then it dropped over and landed directly on its top."
Beaty said he and a co-worker pulled some of the living from the tangled wreckage.
Highway Patrolman Dan Ackerman, one of the first officers on the scene, said, "I heard a lot of kids moaning."
MARTINEZ, CA - (UPI)
The bus trip was to have been a reward for the Yuba City High School choir and its last outing before the summer vacation, but it ended in sudden, violent death for 27 of the youngsters and an adult chaperone.
The bus slammed through a bridge approach guard rail near here Friday, hurtled 30 feet and landed on its top in marsh. There were the anguished moans of the living. Arms and legs protruded from shattered windows.
"It was horrible," Larry Beaty, 32 a Shell Oil Company employee who witnessed the crash, said.
A spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board said it was the worst such bus accident and worst highway crash in the United States since 1967, when the board was set up.
The driver, Evan Prothero, 50, of Olivehurst, and 23 other youngsters suffered serious injuries. All were taken to four nearby hospitals.
Special teams of surgeons and nurses came from other Bay Area hospitals to help.
The choir had been scheduled to perform at Miramonte High School in nearby Orinda in exchange for a Miramonte music group's appearance in Yuba City earlier this year. The trip was to have been a reward for the group's year-long work.
An automobile leading the bus carried music teacher Dean Estabrook, 35, and three others. his wife Christina was on the bus. She died. He saw the accident through a rear view mirror.
"It all happened too fast," the shaken teacher said. He was admitted to a hospital for shock.
Beaty described the crash this way: "Suddenly a big cloud of dust went up, the bus leaned over, hit the rail and its wheels went up. Then it dropped over and landed directly on its top."
Beaty said he and a co-worker pulled some of the living from the tangled wreckage.
Highway Patrolman Dan Ackerman, one of the first officers on the scene, said, "I heard a lot of kids moaning."
The bus trip was to have been a reward for the Yuba City High School choir and its last outing before the summer vacation, but it ended in sudden, violent death for 27 of the youngsters and an adult chaperone.
The bus slammed through a bridge approach guard rail near here Friday, hurtled 30 feet and landed on its top in marsh. There were the anguished moans of the living. Arms and legs protruded from shattered windows.
"It was horrible," Larry Beaty, 32 a Shell Oil Company employee who witnessed the crash, said.
A spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board said it was the worst such bus accident and worst highway crash in the United States since 1967, when the board was set up.
The driver, Evan Prothero, 50, of Olivehurst, and 23 other youngsters suffered serious injuries. All were taken to four nearby hospitals.
Special teams of surgeons and nurses came from other Bay Area hospitals to help.
The choir had been scheduled to perform at Miramonte High School in nearby Orinda in exchange for a Miramonte music group's appearance in Yuba City earlier this year. The trip was to have been a reward for the group's year-long work.
An automobile leading the bus carried music teacher Dean Estabrook, 35, and three others. his wife Christina was on the bus. She died. He saw the accident through a rear view mirror.
"It all happened too fast," the shaken teacher said. He was admitted to a hospital for shock.
Beaty described the crash this way: "Suddenly a big cloud of dust went up, the bus leaned over, hit the rail and its wheels went up. Then it dropped over and landed directly on its top."
Beaty said he and a co-worker pulled some of the living from the tangled wreckage.
Highway Patrolman Dan Ackerman, one of the first officers on the scene, said, "I heard a lot of kids moaning."
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