It all happened in an instant.
One moment Kaisley Neal, a fifth-grader at West Lowndes Elementary School, remembers being told to sit down by the driver of her school bus. Next thing she knew, the bus was struck by another car and sent careening off Highway 45.
The bus rolled three times before coming to a stop upside down in a ditch, she said.
“It was scary, and that was the worst thing I (have) ever experienced in my life,” Neal told The Dispatch on Wednesday. “And … I was the first one to get off the bus, and I helped all the other kids off the bus.”
While she was disoriented and had suffered a few scrapes, Neal said she escaped the wreckage mostly unscathed. The minor injuries she sustained were a far cry from what some of her other classmates endured.
“It was sad to see (my classmates) get airlifted and (some of) them get in the ambulances and have to get transferred to other hospitals,” Neal said.
Neal was one of 22 students in the Lowndes County School District bus Tuesday that was traveling north on Highway 45 when a sedan traveling east on Artesia Road crossed the intersection and collided with the bus.
Lacecia Shelton had just finished work for the day when she received a call that her son Victory Jefferson Jr., a sixth-grader at West Lowndes Elementary School, was on the bus. Racing to the scene of the accident, Shelton said she was terrified seeing the overturned bus and the badly damaged sedan.
     A white sedan involved in a Tuesday accident with a Lowndes County School District bus sits on the side of Highway 45 near the Artesia Road intersection. All those who were injured in the Tuesday accident are in stable condition as of Wednesday, Mississippi Highway Patrol Public Information Officer Trooper Bryant Flake told The Dispatch. Emma McRae/Dispatch Staff   “I was praying the whole way coming,” Shelton said. “And when we got there, traffic was backed up, and it was scary.”
Luckily, Shelton made her way through the crowd of first responders and other onlookers and found Jefferson safe with his other classmates.
“He was complaining about his head, and glass was in his head,” Shelton said. “His arm was hurting, but other than that, he was standing (and) he was fine.
Of the 22 students on the bus, 16 sustained injuries ranging from minor to severe. Of the injured students, one was airlifted from the scene to Birmingham, Alabama, and two others were taken by ambulance to Baptist Memorial Hospital-Golden Triangle in Columbus before being airlifted later to Batson Children’s Hospital in Jackson.
Both drivers were taken to Baptist in Columbus for treatment as well.
Flake said both drivers and all students injured in the wreck, even those airlifted, were in stable condition as of Wednesday afternoon, though he could not comment on the severity of their injuries for the children airlifted to other hospitals.
“All across the board, everybody (being taken to the hospital) was precautionary,” Flake said. “… (Regarding) any severe, severe injuries, nothing (was) too drastic where they were not going to make it. But obviously, we had the one that they airlifted to begin with. … They’re in stable condition as far as that (is concerned).”
‘The community needed to come together’
After arriving at the hospital Tuesday and seeing students receiving treatment for injuries ranging from lacerations from broken glass to broken bones, Tresa Sanders, city clerk for Artesia, said she felt compelled to do something.
By Wednesday morning, she had organized a prayer vigil downtown to inform residents of the injured students’ conditions and to lift up those still receiving treatment at other hospitals.
“I just felt that prayer was needed for us to come together and love on our kids and show them that this could have been a tragedy, but God saw fit for them to live on,” Sanders said. “And I just felt that the community needed to come together.”
     Kenosha Shields, left, speaks with Mayor Jimmy Sanders Wednesday in downtown Artesia. Shields spoke Wednesday during the prayer vigil to give an update on the condition of her nephew, Chase Lucious, a first-grader at West Lowndes Elementary School, who was airlifted to Birmingham, Alabama for further treatment. Braden Simmons/Dispatch Staff   Kenosha Shields, aunt of Chase Lucious, the student who was airlifted to Birmingham for further treatment, said he was still recovering Wednesday from several injuries, including those from glass shards lodged in his head during the crash. He is expected to return to Artesia by Friday, she said.
“He has a lot of bruises, a lot of bumps,” Shields said. “He’s in severe pain, but with God, it’s going to be OK. Because it could have been worse.”
Flake credited the defensive driving efforts of the LCSD bus driver for preventing what could have been a much more severe incident.
“With any type of accident, especially of that magnitude, it obviously could have been worse,” Flake said. “Who’s to say things would have went differently? … You just never know. … But I think all in all, (the driver) did what he could to maneuver the best he could. So even though … kids got hurt, and … we don’t ultimately want that, luckily, everybody’s still here.”
Moving forward
In a statement issued Wednesday by LCSD Superintendent Sam Allison, he thanked first responders for their “quick response” to the accident and urged drivers to stay alert whenever sharing the road with a school bus.
     Sam Allison   “We are thankful today the outcome of Tuesday’s bus accident was not more tragic,” Allison wrote. “Several of those involved face a road to recovery, and we ask you keep them and their families in your thoughts and prayers in the days ahead.”
Timothy Bourne, pastor of Beulah Grove Church, who spoke at Wednesday’s vigil, said that’s exactly what he expects to see from his congregation and the broader Artesia community as the students make their return to school.
“We have got various children, (and) various people in this community, that were affected by this tragic event, and some of it is just not physical,” Bourne told The Dispatch. “A lot of it is traumatic. It’s mental, and it takes the power of God and the love of Jesus Christ to go in and touch and heal the wounds that only the people that are wounded can even sometimes … know about it. Sometimes those things that you can’t see hurt more than those things that you can see.”