By Matthew Waller
San Angelo Standard-Times
SAN ANGELO, Texas — After the church bus full of children hit the white Dodge Caliber north of San Angelo, the bus veered into a cornfield.
Kayli Deremo, 8, said she was “scared ... I was thinking that we might flip over.”
She was right.
The bus rolled onto its side with 41 passengers - 39 third and fifth-graders and two adults. The passengers and bus driver, Teresa Culbertson, 50, of San Angelo, sustained minor injuries, Texas Department of Public Safety Trooper Shawn Baxter said.
A DPS release states 18 children were transported to Shannon Medical Center, 15 by ambulance and three by private vehicle.
The driver of the Dodge, Cynthia Woodson, 24, a corrections officer in Eden, had been traveling south on Schwertner Road and pulled in front of the bus, which was traveling east on Farm-to-Market Road 2105.
Baxter said Woodson told law enforcement officers she didn’t think the bus was going as fast as it was. She suffered incapacitating injuries and was taken to Shannon, Baxter said.
After the crash, in the overturned Grape Creek Baptist Church bus, Kayli crawled out of the back emergency exit.
“I lost my shoe,” she told Ashlyn Crimm, looking down at her single flipflop. Crimm had been in a van traveling to the same church camp in Brownwood where Kayli and the bus were headed.
“It was terrible,” Crimm said. She called for help when she noticed the crushed white Caliber just off the road and then the bus, about 200 feet off the road in a cornfield.
Soon after the crash, dozens of parents were at the crash site, intermingling with investigating law enforcement officials. “My gut reaction was, ‘I’ve got to get there,’” said Kayli’s father, Jeremy Deremo. “I’m very relieved the injuries were as slight as they were.”
Jeremy Deremo said the most common question the children were asking was when they would be able to go to the Brownwood church camp.
The school-type bus didn’t have seat belts, Baxter said.
School buses typically are among the safest forms of automobile transportation, Baxter said, accounting for less than 1 percent of traffic accidents.
“There is really no good crash,” Baxter said, but anytime people can walk away with minor injuries “is a blessing,” he said.
The crash is under investigation. Woodson was cited for failure to yield right of way at a stop sign, a DPS release states.
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