By Michael Stone
Chattanooga Times Free Press
EAST RIDGE, Tenn. — Some college students involved in a crash on Interstate 75 at East Ridge on Sunday credited their bus driver’s quick thinking for minimizing the potential damage.
“Our bus driver reacted really quickly because we almost hit the cement wall [that divides the northbound and southbound lanes],” one student said. All the students from Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Mo., declined to give their names after an adviser told them not to.
The driver, Barry Dunnigan of USA Tours of Rolla, Mo., attributed his speedy reaction to his time in the military.
“I’ve got a little bit more extensive driving training than the average bus driver,” he said. “Luckily, I was able to keep the bus stable because I thought we were going to tilt over.”
About 30 Lincoln University students were returning from the Miss Historically Black Colleges and Universities Pageant in Atlanta, where one had placed second.
They were near the northbound welcome center in East Ridge when police said Esdras Lopez Chavez, 23, lost control of his Ford Mustang and hit the bus in the right front corner.
The impact knocked the bus over one lane and nearly into the concrete median wall, students said.
Initially, 16 students were taken to four local hospitals — five to Memorial, four to Parkridge, four to Parkridge East and three to Erlanger. All were treated and released by 7 p.m. Sunday, Dunnigan said.
“The good thing about this: No one was seriously hurt,” he said.
Chavez was charged with driving without a license, having no insurance and failing to maintain his lane, said Erik Hopkins, a spokesman for East Ridge police.
The high number of potential injuries in the crash triggered a mass casualty response among the hospitals. Six ambulances responded and Medcom, a regional medical communications center, coordinated the availability of patient beds, police said.
“We all work together on any kind of community-related crisis,” Parkridge spokeswoman Pat Holloway said.
Dunnigan said another bus was coming so the students would be back in Jefferson City in time for school today. He plans to take the damaged but driveable bus back today during daylight hours.
But Sunday night, Dunnigan, coincidentally a Chattanooga native and 1979 graduate of the former Kirkman Technical High School, said he’d be enjoying some of his mom’s chicken and dressing.
“It is a coincidence — a bad coincidence for [the crash] to happen, but a good coincidence that my mom was cooking a Sunday dinner,” he said.
Copyright 2010 Chattanooga Publishing Company