Report: Truck driver may have consumed cocaine
The driver of the concrete pump truck that struck a school bus last week, killing two people in Bastrop County, admitted to consuming marijuana and cocaine overnight before the crash, according to documents obtained by Austin television station KEYE.
KEYE identified the truck driver as Jerry Hernandez. The Texas Department of Public Safety, which is investigating the crash, has not officially released his name.
KEYE did not say how the station obtained the document.
After the crash, Hernandez was taken to St. David’s South Austin Medical Center for medical treatment, where he spoke with law enforcement, the station reported.
The search warrant said Hernandez told an officer “that he smoked marijuana at approximately 10 p.m. the night before the crash” and slept for about three hours before getting up for work around 12:30 a.m.
“Mr. Hernandez admitted to consuming cocaine about 1 a.m. on the morning of the crash,” the warrant said. He refused to provide a voluntary blood sample for analysis, so a search warrant was issued to collect blood.
Officials with the Texas Department of Public Safety said Thursday that the crash remains under investigation and no charges had been filed.
The concrete pump truck hit a Hays Consolidated Independent School District bus carrying 44 preschoolers and 11 adults just before 2 p.m. Friday on Texas 21 in Bastrop County.
Dashcam video released by the district Thursday shows the truck veer out of its lane and over the centerline about three seconds before striking the bus. The bus rolled over before coming to a stop on its side.
Two people were killed: Tom Green Elementary student Ulises Rodriguez Montoya, 5, and Ryan Wallace, 33, a University of Texas at Austin graduate student who was driving behind the bus when the collision occurred.
The bus camera video does not show the collision involving a vehicle that was driving behind the bus. The Texas Department of Public Safety said last week that vehicle struck either the concrete pump truck or the bus, but has not released further information.
While DPS said previously that Wallace was driving a Dodge Charger, he was actually driving a 2024 Hyundai, Sgt. Deon Cockrell said.
In addition to the video footage, the Hays school district also released more information about its school bus fleet, including details about seat belts.
The bus involved in the accident was a 2011 model and was one of 15 daily route buses not equipped with seat belts. All buses purchased after 2017 do have seat belts, in compliance with a state law passed that year, district spokesman Tim Savoy said in a written statement.
The district has 21 new buses, all with seat belts, that are currently being outfitted with cameras and GPS equipment. When that is complete “in the coming weeks,” all 109 daily route buses will have seat belts, as well as six spare buses.
But ensuring the entire spare bus fleet has seat belts would be a larger undertaking. Hays CISD currently has 87 spare buses, about 40 of which are in service on any given day for “various duties,” such as field trips or replacing a bus during maintenance, Savoy said.
He said the district would like to have about 40 spare buses with seat belts, which would require purchasing more buses to add to the fleet at a cost of about $160,000 per bus. Savoy said district leaders will discuss that, as well as potential “trip buses,” which are more like coach buses, with the board’s facilities and bond oversight committee.
“We still don’t know whether a seat belt would have made a difference in this accident, and there is much debate about putting seat belts on school buses at all,” Savoy said. “However, for us, the debate is settled because Texas is one of the eight states that require them for newer buses.”
The 2017 law requiring that change was authored by Sen. Sylvia Garcia, DHouston, and came two years after a fatal accident in her district that killed two students. But that wasn’t the first time state legislators tried to address seat belts on school buses.
In 2007, Gov. Rick Perry signed a law requiring seat belts on all school buses purchased after Sept. 1, 2010. Known as “Ashley and Alicia’s Law,” it was passed one year after a motor coach carrying a Beaumont high school soccer team crashed, killing two students and injuring 21 others. But the law said the mandate wouldn’t take effect unless funding was provided to reimburse districts, and much of the money initially allocated for the legislation was cut, resulting in few districts receiving the money for the bus upgrades.