By Natasha Lindstrom, The Tribune-Review, Greensburg (TNS)
Nov. 5—Two teen girls injured Tuesday in a deadly bus crash on Interstate 79 remained hospitalized Thursday morning while police continued to investigate why the bus rear-ended a flatbed tractor-trailer and how much of a role the bus’s speed played.
Brylee Walker, 14, a passenger on the bus from Hermitage, Mercer County, and bus driver Lindsay Thompkins, 31, of Aliquippa, were killed in the crash that injured at least four others.
The bus had been taking 13 students home from Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School in Midland, Beaver County, when it slammed into the back of a tractor-trailer near mile marker 96.6 in Butler County’s Muddy Creek Township, state police said. The driver of the tractor-trailer and a passenger in the truck were not injured, police said.
The two girls who remained hospitalized, ages 13 and 17, were flown from the scene of the crash to Pittsburgh hospitals with what police described as serious injuries. Police said the girls, from Jamestown, Mercer County, were in stable condition Thursday, but they did not disclose the nature or severity of their injuries.
Police said a 14-year-old girl from Slippery Rock and a 15-year-old girl from Volant were taken by ambulance to UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, where they were treated for minor injuries and released.
Police did not release the names of the injured crash victims.
“Everyone who was on the bus is still shaken up,” said Karma Wilson, 13, a Lincoln Park seventh-grader who was on the bus and said she escaped out a back window moments after the violent crash. “I’m still just trying to process it.”
Karma said she didn’t know Brylee well, other than being one of her bus mates, but felt compelled to organize an online fundraising campaign to help her family with funeral costs.
In less than a day, the GoFundMe fundraiser had raised more than $15,000, surpassing an initial goal of $10,000. More than 400 donations ranged from $5 from a fellow student to $1,000 from an anonymous donor.
“I was just on the bus, and I thought that I could help,” Karma said.
She said all money raised will go to Brylee’s family “to help them through this horrible time.”
Karma said students on the bus were sitting quietly when the crash happened. Police said that Brylee had been seated directly behind Thompkins, a driver for Ambridge-based R.J. Rhodes Transit Inc.
“Everything was like really, really sudden,” said Karma, who takes the bus daily between her home in Grove City and Lincoln Park, often nearly two hours each way.
The charter school has more than 600 students in grades 7 to 12, with many requiring transportation from across western Pennsylvania and neighboring areas. Founded in 2006, the school has departments in music, theatre, dance, media arts, writing and publishing, pre-law and the arts, and health science and the arts. Its high school program allows students to earn college credits.
Police have not determined who was at fault in the crash.
“It’s still a very active investigation,” Trooper Josh Black of the Butler barracks said Thursday afternoon.
In a crash report, however, state police cited a vehicle code violation that indicated the school bus had been traveling at an unsafe speed.
Black said the violation “doesn’t necessarily mean that the bus was speeding at all. What it does indicate is that the bus was traveling at a speed that was faster than the tractor-trailer, which is how the crash occurred.”
Police did not say how fast they thought the bus was traveling when it crashed or whether other factors contributed.
In an interview with Tribune-Review news partner WPXI-TV, Brylee’s older brother Jordan Walker said that his sister had a passion for helping others and for music and had recently been honing her skills on a guitar that her grandfather gave her for Christmas.
Shereka Simmons, Thompkins’ sister, told WPXI that her brother was an Aliquippa High School graduate who played football and wrestled. He leaves behind a wife and two children, ages 2 and 9, she said.
“It’s hard. It’s devastating,” Simmons told the station.
Karma Wilson told the Trib that Thompkins was well-liked as the regular driver assigned to her Bus 5 route. “He was really just a nice, genuine person,” she said.
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