Bus crash remembered 50 years later

Dec. 27—The bridge on what is now Red Lake Road near Taiban still shows the scars — exposed rebar and sheared railings — from the crash 50 years ago Monday that took 19 lives, most of them Austin, Texas, high-school students on a church bus en route to the Taos area.

At the time, Red Lake Road, now not much more than a hard dirt road, was part of U.S. 60-84.

A half century later, the scars were still evident in about 40 survivors and family members gathered on Monday, the 50th anniversary of the crash, in a revival tent on the bridge to commemorate the tragedy with prayers and stories of the accident and its aftermath.

The crash was a collision between the church bus and an 18-wheel cattle truck that jackknifed on the bridge on the night of Dec. 26, 1972. That bus was one of two making the trip from the Woodlawn Baptist Church in Austin to a youth convention.

The other bus, called Bus 1, stopped after the accident, and the driver and occupants of Bus 1 helped with the deaths and injuries in Bus 2.

Tuesday's observance was organized by the Rev. Frank Estes, pastor of an independent congregation in Houston. In the 1972 accident, Estes lost both of his parents, who were Woodlawn Baptist youth sponsors, and sustained fractures in both forearms, as well as damage to his hands that still affects him today, he said.

Robert Wesson, a passenger on Bus 2, said he still remembers the sparks from the cattle truck hitting the bridge just before the collision.

"My mother told me not to come" on the trip, he said, "but I wouldn't listen."

"I was angry for a long time" after the accident, he said, especially after returning to school and seeing "the empty desks" and knowing "they weren't there any more."

Wesson still carries a scar in his right eye from a shard of glass that struck him in the collision.

Rick Tomlinson, another Bus 2 passenger, said he can still see "the hurt in the family," especially during the Christmas season. It affects his father and mother, he said, even today.

Jake Sandberg was a passenger in Bus 2, and did not talk about the experience, but his wife Judy Sandberg said she remembers expressing her regrets on Christmas 1972 that she could not go on the trip with Vicki Miller, who died in the collision.

"I'll never forget that," Judy Sandberg said.

Gayle Wilkerson, a passenger on Bus 1, said John Roberts, the driver of his bus, saw the truck jackknife on the bridge behind him and stopped to find out what happened with Bus 2. The driver returned and said there was a horrible accident and urged anyone "who thinks they can take it," to come and assist.

Wilkerson, a high school freshman at the time, had been training in paramedic skills and had brought a first aid kit. He became known as "the medic" to those who rushed to help the victims in Bus 2.

Tom Harlow, another Bus 1 passenger who helped with the Bus 2 victims, said he remembers they set up a triage system. When Wilkerson arrived at Tuesday's ceremony, he met Harlow with a bear hug.

Matt McBee, who said he learned at the last minute he could not go on the trip, said the guilt he felt after learning of the accident stayed with him for years.

"I even contemplated suicide," he said.

Eldon Russ of Clovis was an attendant on a Clovis ambulance that responded to the bus accident. His ambulance took three victims, but none survived, he said.

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Ronny Stidham of Clovis said he remembers the ambulance in which he was an attendant taking injured passengers to the hospital in Clovis. Stidham and his older brother Harvey, who also worked the scene as an emergency medical technician, have made annual trips to the crash site to remember the victims.

Harvey Stidham died last year.

"When we went over that little rise toward the wreck we were kids," Ronny Stidham said on Monday. "When we came back over that rise headed to the hospital we were no longer kids.

"I was 16 then, same age as most of the (crash victims)."

Stidham said a survivor of the 1972 crash, Kathy McKinney, came to Clovis a few years ago and asked Stidham if he would take her and her husband to the crash site.

"She always wanted to know what happened to her sister, her sister's best friend and her sister's boyfriend that night," Stidham said. "The more we talked I realized who she was talking about. I had transported the three of them together to Clovis."

Stidham said he was able to tell McKinney what happened to them, that they were in his ambulance.

"They had head injuries and passed away before they arrived in Clovis," Stidham said.

Stidham said those three people were the only people he transported that night. His brother transported four.

"By the time I got back to the crash more help had arrived," Stidham said. "A man with a camper shell hauled five injured to the Clovis hospital. I always wanted to know his name. We never found out."

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Officials at Cannon Air Force Base dispatched a busload of airmen and three ambulances to the crash site.

Rev. Estes, in Monday's ceremony, recalled the kindness that members of Fort Sumner's First Baptist Church showed the survivors who spent the night there and helped arrange transportation back to Austin for them.

Estes also said it was important to remember that the driver of the cattle truck, Erby Wilmeth of Clovis, "did everything he was supposed to do" in an attempt to avoid the accident.

Records show the bridge was 20 feet wide. Each vehicle measured 8 1/2 feet at their widest point.

Stidham, in multiple interviews, has said Wilmeth "knew that bridge was not wide enough" and tried to avoid the crash he feared was imminent.

"What most people don't realize is he was hitting the guard rail, trying to take that truck into the ravine."

Stidham placed blame for the wreck on the state of New Mexico "for not replacing that bridge years before."