GREENFIELD, Iowa — The boys stripped down to shorts. Girls wore tank tops or sports bras.
Members of the Troopers Drum & Bugle Corps were back at work Monday afternoon, sweating in the extreme heat, just hours after their fellow musicians were injured when one of the group's buses slid off Interstate 80 and fell on its side.
Forty corps members and the bus driver were taken to hospitals for treatment or to be checked over after an accident before 8 a.m. just east of the Minden, Iowa, exit. Most suffered bumps and bruises.
The musicians not involved in the accident — and one member who was — ran through drills for about five hours Monday at the Nodaway Valley High School in Greenfield.
“I think, had we just given them a day off, just to mill around, probably the morale would have been a lot different than it is right now,” said Michael Terry, a baritone instructor with the corps from Atlanta.
Still, there were anxious moments as they awaited the arrival of other members of the group in Greenfield, about 75 miles from the site of Monday's crash.
The corps' 100 musicians had been traveling in a caravan of three buses.
“When we first started hearing about it, you just get that kind of sinking feeling in your gut,” Terry said. “It's certainly wonderful that it was only scratches and bruises.”
He called the outcome “a miracle.” All those injured were released from area hospitals Monday.
The instructors decided to go ahead with Monday's practice to keep members on their regular schedule. The corps rehearsed until 9 p.m. at the Nodaway football field, with a one-hour dinner break.
The corps is a family, Terry said, and the crash could only bring the members closer together. And with the military-style training that members undergo, taking the day off simply wasn't their style, he said. Corps members, who range in age from 14 to 21, come from all over the country, said Fred Morris, the corps' director for six years. More than 400 musicians applied for 142 spots on the corps' summer tour, which takes the group to several states. The corps had been scheduled to practice, then spend the night in Greenfield, before heading to a two-week training camp near Indianapolis on Tuesday, Morris said.
After Monday's crash, the high school turned into a reunion site as well. Those who had been in the bus that crashed arrived on another bus about 4 p.m., some wearing bandages or slings.
Several of their fellow musicians waited in front of the high school for their arrival. When they were reunited, members hugged and cried.
One of the corps members on the bus that blew a tire, Brad Sampson, started practicing soon after he got to the high school. “He just walked in, grabbed his trumpet, and he was out there,” Terry said.
Others on the bus that crashed took the evening off, resting in the high school gym where they would sleep for the night.
Most members of the Troopers Drum & Bugle Corps were sleeping when the eastbound bus blew its right front tire on Monday morning.
The blowout caused the bus driver to lose control of the 56-passenger motor coach, which was rented from Global Transportation LLC out of Denver. The bus skidded about 200 feet, went off the road, headed down an embankment about an additional 225 feet and tipped over onto the driver's side.
Chelsea Hendricks, 22, of Lufkin, Texas, remembers hearing a loud pop before the crash.
“It went from absolute silence to chaos,” she said at Jennie Edmundson Hospital in Council Bluffs.
Passengers had tumbled on top of each other. When the bus came to a stop on its side, Hendricks was standing on the vehicle's side windows. She looked down and saw grass through the windows, now at her feet.
Passengers got out through an emergency exit on the roof of the bus.
Eastbound I-80 traffic was diverted for about 2½ hours. Traffic was detoured five miles to Shelby, Iowa, then back onto I-80.
Morris said from the group's headquarters in Casper, Wyo., that the bus driver, who he said was the most seriously injured person, suffered cuts to his face.
The driver was flown to Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha. He was released by midmorning, Morris said.
All of the injured passengers were treated and released: Fourteen were taken to Jennie Edmundson Hospital and 16 were taken to Mercy Hospital, both in Council Bluffs. Seven were taken to Creighton and three were taken to Nebraska Medical Center, both in Omaha.
Brett Nanninga, superintendent of Tri-County Community Schools in Neola, Iowa, said he saw the crash scene as he was driving to work Monday morning. The school district sent two buses to assist with taking patients to area hospitals, but enough ambulances were on hand, so the buses weren't needed.
Nanninga said it looked as though the bus driver did a good job of keeping control of the bus as long as he did. He said that had the bus gone a little farther up the road, it could have ended up in a creek that runs under both sides of the Interstate.
“I'm not sure you could have drawn it up any better,” Nanninga said.
World-Herald staff writers Kevin Cole, Michael O'Connor and Julie Anderson contributed to this report.
Contact the writer:
402-444-1084, news@owh.com
Members of the Troopers Drum & Bugle Corps describe the crash:
Hugs all around, and then back to practice:
Copyright ©2012 Omaha World-Herald®. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, displayed or redistributed for any purpose without permission from the Omaha World-Herald.
