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jesmespup writes:

three Deer Valley High School students were among nine people killed when a bus returning from a ski trip in Telluride, Colo. rolled multiple times down an embankment in southeastern Utah on Sunday night, officials said.

At least 23 people were injured in the crash.

Of the five confirmed Deer Valley students who were on board, a female junior, 16-year-old female, and a male senior were killed, and two students were found safe, officials said. A senior at Saguaro High School, Joseph Debolske, was also killed. The students were on a ski trip with their families, officials said.

The Associated Press, citing a Deer Valley Unified School District spokesperson, named the three dead students as junior cheerleader Erica Sheffey, senior wrestler Marc Rasmussen and 16-year-old Jasmine Bowden.

Rasmussen was on the trip with his parents, teenage sister and younger brother, according to the spokesperson, Sandi Hicks. The four family members were taken to hospitals, she said.

It wasn't clear whether Sheffey, a cheerleader, was traveling with relatives, Hicks said.

"She got straight As," said Jessika Owen, a classmate of Sheffey's. "She succeeded in anything she did."

The National Transportation Safety Board is sending a team of eight people and should arrive at the accident site sometime Tuesday.

The bus was headed southbound on Utah 163 toward Phoenix at around 7:30 p.m. when the driver tried to negotiate a curve and rolled, Trooper Cameron Roden of the Utah Highway Patrol said.

The impact ripped open part of the roof of the Arrow Stage Lines bus, and several passengers were ejected, Roden said. The driver suffered only minor injuries.

Investigators don't believe weather was a major factor in the accident, Roden said. Passengers from the bus indicated that it was lightly raining at the time of the accident.

“They are looking into speed as a factor,” Roden said.

The bus was on its way back to Phoenix from a ski trip in Telluride, Colo., Roden said.

A manifest showed 51 passengers were on board the bus when it crashed about 10 miles north of Mexican Hat, in the Four Corners region where Utah meets Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico. Rescue crews from all four states were sent to help.

The bus was traveling with 16 others, but detoured from the group. Lee Shapiro, who runs Alpine Ski and Travel, said that 15 Alpine buses were traveling with the bus that crashed and one other bus, and those buses split off from the group in Colorado.

Shapiro said that an unknown corporation booked the trip through Alpine, but was not affiliated with the club. The Alpine group continued to travel through Colorado and made it home Sunday night.

Colorado State Highway Patrol said that an avalanche shut down Lizard Head Pass, around 15 miles south of Telluride on Highway 145 at 5:40 p.m. Saturday, causing drivers to take detours.

This bus chose to detour through southeastern Utah. Debby Marcum, sales manager with Corporate Transportation and Tours, said that the bus was one that they charter out, but that they don't know any more than is being reported. Their chief executive officer is on the way to the scene, she said, but is having a hard time getting there due to bad weather.

The closest hospital was 80 miles north in Monticello. Twenty-four people were taken to San Juan Hospital, chief executive officer Craig Preston said. The hospital typically treats only five to six patients a day.

Preston said the scene at the hospital was busy, but not chaotic. Senior members of the hospital staff said this was the biggest, most serious day they can remember.

“Everybody really responded well,” he said.

Nine to 11 patients were still being evaluated while others with more serious injuries were sent to St. Mary's Hospital in Grand Junction, Colorado; the University of Utah Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah; Allen Memorial Hospital in Moab, Utah; and the Kayenta Medical Center in Kayenta, Ariz.

The region's isolation and the winter weather slowed aid efforts Sunday. A helicopter from Colorado could not take off because of winter storms. Cell phone service was not available in the area, Roden said.

Jeffrey Rivera was one of those who died at the scene of the crash, according to his mother. He was 32.

Rivera's mother, Celia Edwards called the Sheriff's Office in Utah this morning when she saw reports that the bus crashed. She was told her son wasn't on the list. Someone from Utah called her back later in the day to inform her that her son had, indeed, died.

Edwards had her oldest child and only son when she was 21.

He loved his niece, Scarlette, and nephew, Aiden Jeffrey, named after his uncle.

“They were his little pride and joy. We saw a side of him we hadn't seen in years. The babies brought it out in him."

“He was just a good person,” she said. “He was the one I never had to worry about.”

Rivera was on the trip with 10 of his friends, Edwards said. The last time Edwards talked to her son, he told her they were snowed in and the roads were closed. He told his mother he'd see her soon.

“I've cried till I can't cry anymore,” she said through tears. “It just hurts so bad. You're just not supposed to outlive your children”

“He was a great person. He had a big heart. He loved those babies.”

Scottsdale Saguaro High School senior Joe DeBolske, 18, had been confirmed dead by his aunt Theresa Talbert.

"Joey died," she said.

DeBolske's father, Kevin, is in the hospital, Talbert said.

Mexican Hat, named for a rock formation that resembles a hat, is 360 miles southeast of Salt Lake City and has fewer than 100 residents.

Rose June, a clerk at the San Juan Inn, said she rushed to the scene to distribute blankets and towels to people on stretchers. She said many on the bus seemed to be in their 20s.

“They were saying, ‘Where's my friend? Where's the ambulance?'” June said. “I tried to keep the rain off their face.”

She said the highway can be tricky, but there are many signs warning about curves.

“If you don't know your way, this can happen,” June said.

Danny Palmer was spending Sunday evening at home with his family when he heard a report about a bus crash crackle across his scanner. Not too long after, at about 9:40 p.m., Palmer, a funeral director at San Juan Mortuary in Blanding, Utah, got a call from the San Juan County Sheriff's Office.

There were three fatalities at the scene, they told him, come down.

It was a 40-mile drive in the snow and the rain from his home to the scene of the accident. As he got closer, all he could see in the black of night were floating police lights.

“It's kind of a grisly sight when you see in the darkness that amount of lights, flashing lights, red and blue,” he said.

At first Palmer couldn't tell the front of the bus from the back. In the fall, he said, the roof had ripped off and scattered, in pieces, across the road.

It's a desert around that area; he explained, flat, no trees, just a little brush. Where the bus toppled over, there is also a gradual 20-foot embankment, though there is no guardrail, he said.

Palmer spent the next two hours helping victims and watching as people involved in the tragedy rose above it.

“People that probably needed their own medical attention were helping those who were more serious,” he said. “It was quite inspiring.”

By the time he left to take four of the seven victims to his mortuary home, all of the critically wounded had already been transported away. Others waited for additional rides.

He spent most of Monday morning waiting for four phone calls. Families, he said, would be calling for their loved ones; he had to be there when they did.

“I haven't had a chance much to visit with many people” about what happened, he said.

Palmer describes Blanding as a small town, a little over 4,000 people.

“This community is a great community as far as taking people in.” He says clinics opened their doors to the wounded and hotels have done the same.

keep them in your prays

this is a true story and my cuz go to the school and knew one of the girls! so pray