Christian Baseball Team's Bus Crashes; 6 Die
Pastor Dale Morgan
Mar 2, 5:49 PM EST
*Christian Baseball Team's Bus Crashes; 6 Die*
By DANIEL YEE
Associated Press Writer
ATLANTA (AP) -- A small college in Ohio was thrown into mourning Friday
after a bus carrying the Christian baseball team tumbled over the side
of a highway overpass and slammed onto the pavement 30 feet below,
killing four students, the driver and his wife.
The team from the close-knit, Christian Mennonite-affiliated Bluffton
University was making its annual spring training trip to Florida before
daybreak when the charter bus crashed, scattering bags of baseball
equipment across the road and splattering blood on the overpass. Some of
the athletes climbed out the roof escape hatch, dazed and bloody.
"I just looked out and saw the road coming up at me. I remember the
catcher tapping me on the head, telling me to get out because there was
gas all over," said A.J. Ramthun, an 18-year-old second-baseman from
Springfield, Ohio, who was asleep in a window seat and suffered a broken
collarbone and cuts on his face from broken glass. "I heard some guys
crying, `I'm stuck! I'm stuck!'"
Investigators said the driver apparently mistook an exit ramp for a lane
and went into the curve at full speed. It was dark at the time, but the
weather was clear.
On the 1,150-student campus in Bluffton, about 50 miles south of Toledo,
students and community residents - some wiping away tears - filled the
gymnasium to grieve and learn more about what happened. When news of the
crash appeared on television, students desperately tried to reach some
of the athletes on their cell phones.
Sophomore Courtney Minnich said that at a college as small as Bluffton,
"even if you didn't know everybody, it will hurt, because you've seen
them on campus."
Classes were canceled, along with other sports trips that had been
scheduled during next week's spring break. Airlines arranged for the
players' parents to fly to Atlanta free on Friday evening.
Megan Barker, a sophomore, said she knew just about everyone on the team
and described them as "a fun-loving group of guys." She added: "They
live as a family."
Beyond the six killed, 28 players and their coach, James Grandey, 29,
were taken to the hospital. He and six players were reported in serious
or critical condition; many of the rest were soon released. The players'
injuries included broken bones, cuts and bruises.
The bus had set out from Ohio the evening before and had traveled all
night long before it went off the road and landed on its side about at
about 5:30 a.m. on Interstate 75. Two vehicles under the overpass were
struck by the bus, but their drivers were not hurt.
"It looked to me like a big slab of concrete falling down," said
pickup-truck driver Danny Lloyd, 57, of Frostburg, Md. "I didn't
recognize it was a bus. I think when I saw the thing coming, I think I
closed my eyes and stepped on the gas."
The National Transportation Safety Board was called in to investigate.
Investigators said there were no skid marks, and they hoped to tap into
the bus' computer system for clues. The driver had boarded the bus with
his wife less than an hour before the wreck, relieving another driving
team, authorities said.
It was not immediately known if the bus had seat belts. Motorcoaches
like the one involved typically do not have seat belts in the passenger
section. Calls to the charter company, Executive Coach Luxury Travel
Inc. of Ottawa, Ohio, were not immediately returned.
The university identified the victims as sophomores David Betts and
Tyler Williams; freshmen Scott Harmon and Cody Holp; bus driver Jerome
Niemeyer; and his wife, Jean Niemeyer, all of them from Ohio.
"This is deeply impacting all of our students, faculty and staff. We
know these people on a first-name basis," said James Harder, the
school's president. "For now we're pulling together and supporting each
other as best we can."
The baseball team had been scheduled to play its first spring-training
game of the season in Sarasota, Fla., on Saturday and had eight more
games scheduled in Fort Myers, Fla.
The university is affiliated with the Mennonite Church USA. About
one-fifth of the students are Mennonite, and the school stresses
spirituality, but it is open to all religious backgrounds.
The church emphasizes pacifism and nonviolence. But unlike adherents of
more conservative Mennonite denominations and the Amish, members wear
modern clothing and use electricity. Smoking and drinking are banned on
campus.
At a campus chapel service the night before the bus trip, students had
prayed for safe travel for their sports teams and other students during
spring break.
"Sometimes you take that stuff for granted," said Katie Barrington, a
junior from Brooklyn Heights, Ohio.
Bluffton football players were working out in the weight room when they
saw news of the crash on TV and recognized the logo on the bus as the
company that all the school's sports teams have used, assistant football
coach Steve Rogers said.
"That's when reality hit everybody," he said. "Everybody was in shock.
Nobody knew what to say or what to feel." He added: "It hits home harder
than it would if it had happened at a bigger school. Everybody knows
each other."
Matt Ferguson, a freshman baseball player from Pleasant Hill, Ohio, said
most of the freshmen had stayed behind.
"We were bummed out we didn't get to go," he said. "Now, we don't know
what to think."
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Associated Press writer John Seewer at Bluffton University contributed
to this report.
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