‘We have kids everywhere’
Audio recordings from the fatal bus crash in Arkansas early Monday morning reveal the fear and disorientation inside the bus and the scope of the operation dispatched to help them.
The Commercial Appeal has obtained through an open records request to Saline County (Arkansas) Emergency Management audio recordings of the 911 call from an adult male inside the bus made moments after the accident.
Nine-year-old Kameron Johnson was killed in the crash on Interstate 30 near Benton, Arkansas, and 45 people were injured. Kameron was a student with Aspire Public Schools, according to a statement released from the charter school network.
The bus was owned by Scott Shuttle Service of Somerville, Tennessee, and was driven by 65-year-old Eula Jarrett, an employee of the bus company. Jarrett told investigators she lost control of the vehicle, causing it to roll off the interstate.
In the initial call, which lasted more than seven minutes, the unidentified caller can be heard telling the 911 opera-
Linda A. Moore
tor that he didn’t have an address, as he shouted to ask others in the bus exactly where they were.
“We have kids everywhere. We have a lot of kids hurt,” the man said.
Those injured children could be heard in the background of the recording.
The operator calmly quizzed the man about the state of the bus, the bus driver and the other passengers.
In a separate recording, emergency personnel can be heard calling for more help and referring to the accident as a “mass casualty.”
Early responders arrived and found an estimated 25 people who had escaped the bus after the crash.
The group was part of the Orange Mound Youth Association, but included children from across the city. They were returning to Memphis from a football tournament in Texas.
The Commercial Appeal found that Scott Shuttle was fined in July 2018 for allowing a driver to operate one of its vehicles without a proper license. In November 2017, the company was involved in a minor collision in Jackson, Tennessee.
Four of the company’s five buses have passed unannounced inspections in the past two years. Though some minor violations were found — discolored or damaged windshield, oil and/or grease leak, inoperable tail lamp — the company received a “satisfactory” rating following a comprehensive review by federal auditors in May 2018.