Jun 25, 2002 2 min read

TERRELL, Texas (AP) – A chartered bus taking youngsters to a church camp crashed into the concrete pillar of an overpass Monday, killing the driver and four passengers, authorities said. At least 32 other people were injured in the accident 30 miles east of Dallas. Their conditions were not immediately known. The bus was carrying more than 40 people.

The bus became wedged between the pillar and a grass embankment, its left side nearly sheared off. The scattered debris included a shoe and a tattered black Bible, along with a pile of bus seats and twisted pieces of metal.

Family members gathered along the side of the highway, hugging and crying as emergency officials worked to clear the mangled wreckage.

Passengers said the eastbound bus on Interstate 20 swerved just before it veered into the pillar. The cause of the crash wasn’t immediately determined, said state Department of Public Safety Cpl. Joe Applewhite.

The bus was one of two taking middle and high school students and some adult chaperones to a church camp in Ruston, La.

“I was able to pull some of the children out from the chairs that were all mangled up and tore up,” said Ruben Vasquez, a passer-by who was among the first on the scene.

“These kids were screaming and hollering for their moms and dads.”

Todd Von Helms, a youth minister with First Baptist Church of Cedar Hill, was traveling with another group headed to the same camp when they came upon the accident scene.

“There were bodies and blood and things everywhere,” Von Helms said.

“I asked our youths to turn their heads and not to look.”

Most of the victims were members of Metro Church of Garland.

At least one, 14-year-old Michelle Chaney, attended Arapaho Baptist Church. She was among the dead.

“She was the only daughter I had,” said her father, Benny Chaney.

Sean Burns, a deacon at Metro Church, said counselors were helping family members handle their grief.

“We don’t have to understand everything,” Burns said.

“God’s ways are higher than our ways, obviously, and we’ve just got to trust in God. There may be a reason why this happened.”

The interstate is a major east-west artery across Texas, and it has seen a number of deadly accidents this year.

Earlier this month, three people were killed after a Greyhound bus slammed into the rear of tractor-trailer in West Texas.