By Marlyn Montilla
Mar 30, 2024, 3:34 PM EDT
The driver of the cement truck that allegedly left a student and the driver dead when it crashed into a school bus carrying 40 preschoolers returning from a field trip in Texas admitted he used cocaine and marijuana before driving, Austin reported. -American Statesman.
More than 40 pre-K students and 11 adults from Tom Green Elementary School were returning to school after a field trip at the Bastrop County Zoo on March 22 when the truck driver swerved into the lane and crashed into the bus at approximately 2:00 in the afternoon.
At least 32 people were taken to hospitals, and dozens of students and teachers reported injuries, Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services said.
Identified as Ulises Rodríguez Montoya, a pre-kindergarten student at the elementary school, Tom Green and Ryan Wallace, 33, a doctoral student at the University of Texas, lost their lives during the accident.
Likewise, the Texas Department of Public Safety stated that the driver, Jerry Hernández, 42, was arrested on charges of criminally negligent homicide, USA Today reported.
“He was also arrested on an unrelated warrant for bail jumping out of Hays County. Both warrants were served this afternoon at a residence in Bastrop County and he was taken into custody without incident,” said Texas DPS Sergeant Deon Cockrell.
Hernandez said he stepped into the bus’s path “because a driver of another vehicle, two cars in front of him, had suddenly slammed on the brakes.” Additionally, the man refused to give a blood sample to authorities at the scene, detectives said.
The Hispanic man told officials that he was on his way home at the time of the accident and that before leaving his workplace, he took a 15-minute nap.
According to his account in the affidavit, he had only slept three hours the night before, smoking marijuana around 10 p.m. and consuming a “small amount of cocaine” a couple of hours later, at 1:00 p.m. early morning.
A Texas Department of Public Safety detective told Bastrop District Attorney Bryan Goertz that he did not believe the subject was under the influence of drugs or alcohol, but that he was sleepy and possibly fell asleep while driving.
The prosecutor said that if he fell “asleep while driving,” then “there is nothing” criminal about it. Especially if the disability cannot be proven.
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