911 callers told of carnage at Texas bus wreck

Witnesses who called 911 after a chartered bus crash that killed at least 16 people described a chaotic scene, telling emergency personnel of bloody passengers crushed beneath the smoking wreckage, according to calls released Saturday by police.

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The unlicensed bus carrying 55 members of a Vietnamese Catholic group from Houston to Carthage, Mo., for an annual religious festival smashed into a guardrail and skidded off a highway early Friday near the Texas-Oklahoma state line. Twelve people died at the scene and four more died at hospitals.

One emergency call began with a female crash victim speaking in accented English over the screams and moans of other passengers. After struggling to answer the 911 operator's questions, she handed the phone to a man, who apparently arrived at the scene immediately after the crash.

"We've got people crushed underneath the bus," the man said. "The bus is smoking. It might catch fire."

A female caller told a 911 operator that there were passengers "just everywhere out here laid out on the ground. They are bloody." Another caller said: "There's people screaming for help."

Federal investigators were to try to pinpoint what caused the bus to smash into a guardrail and skid off a highway north of Dallas, crushing one side of the vehicle and injuring dozens.

The vehicle's right front tire, which blew out, had been retreaded in violation of safety standards, said Debbie Hersman, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board. The tread had separated from the tire itself in a process called delamination.

"If there is a loss of pressure or the tire becomes delaminated, it's much more difficult to control the vehicle," she said.

It is legal to retread such tires but they may not be used on the wheels that steer a bus, Hersman said.

The vehicle was carrying 55 people from Houston to Carthage, Mo., for an annual festival honoring the Virgin Mary. Most of the passengers were from the Vietnamese Martyrs Church and two other mostly Vietnamese congregations in Houston.

The Marian Days pilgrimage, which started in the late 1970s, attracts thousands of Catholics of Vietnamese descent and includes a large outdoor Mass each day, entertainment and camping at night.

By midday Saturday, the damaged guardrail had been replaced. Several bouquets of carnations, tulips and roses had been left on the embankment amid the burned grass and shards of broken glass.

The 52-year-old driver, Barrett Wayne Broussard, had a commercial license but his medical certification had expired, Hersman said. The driver was reported in stable condition at a hospital.

According to online records from the Texas Department of Public Safety, Broussard was convicted in 2001 of driving while intoxicated in Houston and sentenced to 10 days in prison and was fined $225. He has also been arrested at least three other times and was sentenced to two years in prison in 1998 for violating probation.