The trip back home to Texas from a school trip to Walt Disney World ends in tragedy. The bus carrying Texas high school band members crashed into a ravine off the side of an Alabama interstate. According to authorities, the accident happened just before dawn at 5:33 a.m. killing the bus driver and injuring multiple passengers.
First responders used ropes to rappel down the 50-foot ravine in the middle of Interstate 10 to reach the bus, and then had to cut some of the victims free from the wreckage, said Baldwin County Sheriff Huey Hoss Mack, who confirmed the fatality.
Only hours before the crash, the band’s Facebook page had been updated to show a large group posing outside Disney World.
Forty students and six adults were on the bus at the time, according to the school district. In the video below you can see just how steep the embankment is.
RAVINE CRASH: The driver is dead and dozens of students injured after a bus carrying a Houston-area high school band back from Walt Disney World crashed down a 50-foot ravine in Alabama, with emergency crews and investigators on the scene. https://t.co/GkD90rD9gJ pic.twitter.com/U3wQJsTGfD
— World News Tonight (@ABCWorldNews) March 13, 2018
Emergency units were dispatched to evacuate and extricate the passengers. Some were carried out by police deputies, others were brought to the surface by firefighters who rappeled down the ravine.
The interstate was closed down in both directions as the injured were flown to hospitals including emergency rooms in Mobile and Pensacola, Florida, plus a free-standing emergency room in rural Baldwin County, said Chris Elliott, a Baldwin County commissioner who helped out at the county emergency management center following the crash.