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Show . t ;h - rTT-rr,L:: : fr- - . , ' w "- ').: -i r-- mm f :' y-r - - ' J Many are now calling him a "hometown hero," Ixi Bruce Dalton, a 16-year veteran PI IS activity bus driver says he is still shaking. Dalton is credited CEDAR CITY Friday night's heavy snow storm over the entire state made traveling to Cedar City's State 1A Boys Basketball Bas-ketball Tournament a difficult trip for everyone, but the Panguitch High School bus carrying the team to its critical game with top-ranked top-ranked Tabiona almost didn't make it. After surviving a harrowing accident on the freeway, a nervous nerv-ous and shaken team arrived just in time for one player to receive four stitches for his injury before the team went out to win its game. Less than an hour earlier, the Panguitch High School activity bus carrying 15 members of the basketball team, several young team managers and assistants, 13 cheerleaders, coaches and its cheerleader advisor had been making its way carefully over snow-slushy highways. After 16-year veteran bus driver Bruce Dalton topped Summit Sum-mit just 10 minutes north of Cedar City, he noticed the road suddenly sud-denly getting very slick. He and the drivers in vehicles in front of him began to methodically tap their brakes. Traveling in the right hand lane, Dalton saw a Cadillac immediately im-mediately in front of him start to lose control, so he quickly changed to the left lane, slowing all the while. Down to maybe 25 mph, Dalton explained they were almost in a complete white out when he could see that, in reality, the cars had been braking to avoid a semi truck hauling a refrigerated re-frigerated rig that had stopped, straddling both lanes. Dalton had to think last. Rather than being forced into the bar pit and possibly turning the bus over, he decided to try to get with saving the state championship as he manuvered this school bus filled with ball players and cheerleaders to a tricky stop on 1-15. PHS Bus Involved In Freeway Crash around the big rig. Slowing still, he deftly maneuvered as far to the left as he could, and, tapping his brakes carefully, started squeaking squeak-ing by the semi. Still tapping his brakes, as he began passing, he could then see a group of cars piled together in front of the semi. He tapped his brakes one last time, but they apparently froze, (See CRASH On Page 2-A) Crash From Front Page causing the bus to slide sideways, and the rear right end of the bus impacted with the left rear end of the refer truck. Quick-thinking and agile basketball bas-ketball player Henry James who was seated in that back last seat anticipated the impending impact and dove as fast as he could across the isle and into the lap of fellow player Nate Moore. . Dalton was able to maintain control of the bus and guided it to a stop in a narrow opening right in front of the semi. Because of the quick action of the ball players, serious injury was averted and only team one player, Garrett Sawyer, required treatment. Highway Patrol Trooper Larry Orton investigated the pile-up which occurred at milepost 67 on 1-15 around 4:15 p.m. Orton allowed al-lowed Dalton to finish transporting transport-ing the team members to the Centrum Cen-trum to make their 5 p.m. game against Tabiona, a pivotal game in the playoffs. The team arrived just in time to allow Dr. Richard Birch, Panguitch, Pan-guitch, who was in attendance at the game to go down to the lock-erroom lock-erroom and sew up the injured ball player. Though shaken, the team went on an win its game by one point, 56 to 55, and proceeded to play Rich then on Saturday to capture the first place state slot. After dropping the team off, Dalton went back to the Highway (See CRASH On Page 3-A) Crash From Page 2-A Patrol office to assist the officer taking the report. Iron County bus driver, Dan Leavitt, seeing the damage to the Garfield County School bus from the accident, went directly to the Iron County School District bus terminal and warmed up and delivered de-livered a replacement bus to Dal-ton Dal-ton so that he could transport the students back to Panguitch later that night. The driver of the semi complimented com-plimented Dalton, telling Trooper Orton that "Dalton did a hell of a job keeping that bus upright and bringing it to a stop." Trooper Orton as well, commended com-mended Dalton and told him about an accident at the same location a year ago where several deaths occurred. . Dalton, still quite shaken and unnerved on Monday, said the only redeeming thing about the entire incident was that he was able to get back to the Centrum to see the final, important last quarter of the game. |
