CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — A sixth child has died from injuries sustained in a school bus crash in Chattanooga, Tennessee, police tweeted Wednesday night.
The bus was on its way home from school Monday when driver Johnthony Walker is said to have swerved off the road, leading the bus, with 37 students on board, into a tree. The bus split apart, according to officials.
The mangled wreckage of the school bus has been cleared, but the Chattanooga yard where the bus crashed into a tree is now a solemn memorial site.
Well-wishers left candles, flowers and prayers at the site of the crash, which is in front of Mary Smith’s home. Smith had darted outside her house when she heard the crash on Monday.
“I ain’t never heard nothing like that before in my life,” she told CNN affiliate WKRN. “The wheels were still turning on the bus.”
The school bus swerved off Talley Road, plowed into a tree and split apart. The accident killed at least six children and wounded several others.
Of the five children confirmed dead after Monday’s crash, three were fourth-graders, one was a first-grader and one was a kindergartner. They were: Zakiyyah Mateen, 6; D’Myunn Brown, 6; Zoie Nash, 9; Cor’Dayja Jones, 9; and a fifth unidentified child.
The sixth child, who died on Wednesday, was not identified with an age or name.
There were 18 other children injured — some with severe head or spinal injuries, others with broken bones or cuts — and at least five remained hospitalized on Wednesday. As of Tuesday afternoon it had been reported that 12 patients remained hospitalized, with six in critical care and six stable.
The bus driver, Johnthony Walker, 24, has been arrested on vehicular homicide charges as local officials and the National Transportation Safety Board investigate the accident.
Chief: ‘Driving was reckless and unsafe’
The bus left Woodmore Elementary School Monday afternoon with 37 students and did not make any stops before the crash, National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Christopher A. Hart said Tuesday. Investigators are looking into why the bus was not on its designated route at the time of the crash.
The school bus was heading down a narrow and winding road well above the speed limit of 30 mph, according to an arrest affidavit for Walker.
“Mr. Walker lost control of the bus and swerved off of the roadway to the right, striking an elevated driveway and mailbox, swerved to the left and began to overturn, striking a telephone pole and a tree,” the affidavit says.
Chattanooga Police Chief Fred Fletcher told HLN that the “driving was reckless and unsafe for conditions at the time.”
Walker’s blood sample was sent to state lab for processing, and tests for drugs and alcohol came back negative.
The bus did not have seat belts.
The accident in which the bus flipped on its side Monday was actually the second time in two months that Walker, a father of a 3-year-old who worked two jobs, crashed a school bus.
Garrett said investigators had obtained warrants for all data devices on the bus and were reviewing video of front, back and side views of the vehicle.
In September, Walker was driving around a blind curve in a residential area when he failed to yield the right of way and sideswiped another car, according to the accident report.
In the earlier crash, which Garrett described as a “minor wreck,” Walker “crossed over into the oncoming traffic lane to maneuver the bus through the curve and struck vehicle #2 in doing so,” the report states. “There were no children in the front rows, and no reports of any injuries. The damage (was) minor to both vehicles.”
Now, investigators are trying to determine why Walker was driving “well above” the speed limit when the bus hit a mailbox, a utility pole and flipped on its side as it struck a tree.
Walker received his commercial driver’s license in April, the NTSB said.
The NSTB was having some problem downloading video and data from the cameras and the engine control module on the bus because of damage, Hart said.
The bus company had been operating since 2007 on a “conditional safety rating” from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, but that was upgraded to “satisfactory” after the unspecified problems were resolved, Hart said.
“We will be exploring what were the deficiencies,” he said.
