Two people are dead, one a first-year high school track coach, after a tractor trailer swerved into the path of a Mount Pleasant Independent School District bus and a car traveling behind it just south of Talco, Texas, late Thursday, officials said.
The driver of the truck and a woman traveling in a Pontiac Grand Am behind the school bus perished in the collision, said Sylvia Jennings, DPS spokeswoman.
The woman is identified as Angelica Beard, a first-year MPHS girls track team coach, according to the Mount Pleasant Tribune's website.
Troopers responded to the three-vehicle crash about 10:30 p.m. Thursday on U.S. Highway 271 a mile south of Talco in Titus County, Jennings said.
"Preliminary information indicates an International truck tractor/semi-trailer was traveling north on U.S. 271. A Mount Pleasant Independent School District School bus was traveling south on U.S. 271 followed by a Pontiac Grand Am passenger car. For an as yet undetermined reason, the driver of the truck tractor drove into the southbound lane and struck the school bus and the passenger car," Jennings wrote in a press release.
Several passengers on the school bus were transported to area hospitals.
Initial reports indicate four passengers sustained serious injuries and the rest were reported to be non-life-threatening, Jennings said.
MPISD Superintendent Judd Marshall told the Tribune the boys and girls track team had a meet in Paris Thursday and the teams were on two different buses. Marshall said the boys bus was ahead of the girls bus by several miles and was swiped by the truck coming into its lane.
Marshall said the driver of the bus, track coach Van Bowen, was able to swerve and avoid a full head-on collision. Brown was transported to a hospital in critical condition, according to media reports.
A prayer vigil is planned for 6 p.m. Friday in the high school gym.
The investigation is ongoing and additional information will be released as it becomes available.
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