By Shannon Lukens. (School bus photo courtesy West Grand Transportation Director, Bethany Aurin.)
Photo courtesy Frank Alexander
Seventeen Steamboat Sailor JV Hockey players are OK today, after a bus accident late Saturday night. It happened on their way home from hockey games on the Front Range, on Highway 40, just a few miles north of Kremmling. Colorado State Patrol says they are still investigating, but the initial call at 11:17 p.m. came in that a vehicle tried to pass the bus and lost control. While CSP says that was the initial call, those on the bus say the car was coming from the other direction and lost control.
Sailor sophomore Frank Alexander was on the bus with his teammates.
“At first we thought we hit an elk, or like an animal or something. So we were all really confused. But we were all OK. It was for sure like we hit something. We were more worried about the person we hit at the time than our own selves because we were all completely fine. Once we found out that she was OK, we were all like, ‘Let’s just get home.’”
Photos courtesy Bethany Aurin.
Colorado State Patrol says the other car was a Lexus with Texas plates, and it was being driven by an 18-year-old female. Here’s Frank Alexander again, on what happened when the car hit the bus.
“It hit the driver’s side of the bus and then the bus kind of like swerved a little bit to the left, and then she pulled it back to the right. And then we stopped. We weren’t able to get and look at it or anything, we were all just told to stay on the bus. But our coach (SSHS JV Coach Brent Bessey) went out and looked around to see if he could find the car, and he did. He found the car. It was a girl and she wasn’t hurt or anything. She was OK. My coach said it was an 18-year-old girl driving home from college.”
Colorado State Patrol Master Trooper Gary Cutler says both vehicles were blocking both lanes on Highway 40 and there was a lot of debris on the road. And both vehicles had to be towed.
Casey Ungs, the Transportation Director for the Steamboat Springs School District, helped arrange a school bus out of Kremmling, courtesy of the West Grand School District, to pick up the hockey players and Coach Bessey. The Steamboat bus driver, Tammie Mader, then drove them home to Steamboat Springs, where the kids were picked up by their very relieved parents.
Master Trooper Cutler adds that drivers need to be especially careful on mountain roads in the winter.
“Anytime you are driving down any road, especially these mountain roads where there is a lot of two-lane traffic, if you are going to pass somebody, you need to make sure that 1), You have the distance to be able to do that, and, 2) You want to make sure the conditions of the road are in the situation where you can actually pass and by that I mean you don’t have excessive snow or ice or anything like that on the road. You’re not in an area that may have deer crossing or traffic coming around a curve. If you have that situation, you may want to hold off and wait. Sometimes it’s better just to stay behind the vehicle if it is going slower. It’s just a lot more safe to stay behind the vehicle instead of try to pass it at night and on these mountain roads.”
Finally, the SSHS JV Hockey team was able to get all of their hockey bags off the bus and put them on the loaner bus from the West Grand School District for the trip home.
Another note, Bethany Aurin is now the West Grand Transportation Director in Kremmling. She helped with all of the arrangements for the Steamboat Springs team to get a bus ride back home. Bethany was a long-time bus driver in Steamboat Springs and she also was the SSHS Hockey Team bus driver for many years, before moving to Kremmling.
Aurin writes that the driver of the Steamboat bus, Tammie Mader, drove the team home late last night. She says, “Colorado State Patrol and the coach were effusive in their praise for her skill keeping the bus on the road despite damage to the driver area. Also, the hockey boys reflected very highly on Steamboat Springs with their maturity in a stressful situation and they were extremely polite. Every one of them made a point of thanking me for bringing them a bus.”
Mader and another driver will be taking the West Grand school bus back to Kremmling today.
