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Cold Case Files
I SURVIVED: Shut That Door Again or You Don't Survive
00:43:25
Two students and a professor at Virginia Tech University manage to survive the April 16, 2007, massacre at the school. A Minneapolis school bus with 52 children plummets 45 feet when a bridge collapses in August 2007.  Cook...
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- [00:00]
Derek
With the American Express Gold Card.
- [00:02]
Colin
Everyday decisions take on a bold new.
- [00:04]
Derek
Flavor, from homemade short ribs to your favorite Indian spot. You earn four times Membership Rewards points on US supermarkets and restaurants worldwide, plus enjoy up to $10 in statement credits each month when dining with participating partners with a $120 dining credit with AMEX Gold. Every dining choice packed an unexpected punch. Enrollment required terms and points cap applied. Learn more@americanexpress.com US Explore Gold hi I Survived listeners.
- [00:30]
Marissa Pinson
I'm Marissa Pinson, and before we get into this week's episode, I just want to remind you that episodes of I Survived, as well as the A and E classic podcast, Cold Case Files, City Confidential and American justice, are all available ad free on the new A and E Crime and Investigation channel on Apple Podcasts and Apple plus for just 4.99amonth or 39.99 a year. And now onto the show. This episode contains subject matter that may be disturbing to some listeners. Listener discretion is advised.
- [01:00]
Derek
I was looking down the barrel of his gun and at that point we made eye contact. And that was probably one of the scariest moments of my life.
- [01:07]
Marissa Pinson
Real people.
- [01:09]
Kim
I couldn't get my seatbelt to release and then all of a sudden the bus shifted a little more and then I got scared. I got really, really scared.
- [01:17]
Marissa Pinson
Who faced death?
- [01:19]
Colin
Bang, bang bang. And then all of a sudden one of those bangs hits. You move with the force of the bullets. Just act like a rag doll and just hopefully he'll go away and live.
- [01:29]
Derek
To tell how you go into almost this good versus evil mood, you have to prevail. You have to either shut that door again or you don't survive.
- [01:39]
Marissa Pinson
This is I survived. It's April 2007 in Blacksburg, Virginia. Ishwar, a professor at Virginia Tech University, arrives at his Norris hall office.
- [01:55]
Ishwar
I came into work at about 8 o'clock or so or slightly before, as is my norm, and started working on a proposal I was writing. And while I was working on that proposal, there was a call that came in that there had been a double homicide on campus.
- [02:16]
Marissa Pinson
Two students had been shot in a dormitory on campus.
- [02:19]
Ishwar
It was quite startling because to have a homicide on a university campus is very unusual. My staff and I talked about this. We were shocked, but we felt that it was a police matter and then the police would essentially take care of things.
- [02:41]
Marissa Pinson
The student, gunman Seung Hee Cho, remained at large, unaware of the homicides. Students, including Derek, arrived for classes in Norris Hall.
- [02:52]
Derek
I got there about five minutes before class started and everything seemed pretty normal. Nothing out of the ordinary. I sat about six feet from the door or so, maybe two rows back from the door. So I had pretty much an easy eye line to it. About 15 or 10 minutes into class, somebody came, came in, like, sort of peaked their head. And it's pretty common, like a student looking for their class or getting lost. But it seemed sort of out of the ordinary at first because it was halfway through the semester, and everybody sort of knows where their classes are by now. And what really seems sort of really out of the ordinary was when he looked in the second time, which was probably like no more than five or 10 seconds after he looked in the first.
- [03:37]
Marissa Pinson
The gunman, who had already killed two students was now in Norris Hall. He used chains to lock the main doors behind him. Colin was also in class in Norris Hall.
- [03:49]
Colin
Everything was perfectly normal. Nothing was going wrong until we heard a bunch of loud bangs. And the bangs, we thought were from construction. There was a lot of construction going on in neighboring buildings. We honestly thought nothing of it. The teacher, however, I think, knew exactly immediately what that sound was. I remember looking at her face and her face just dropping. She went to the door, opened the door to look outside to see what was going on, and immediately she shut the door, told us to get on the ground underneath our desk, and somebody called 911. And at that moment it was, you know, it's serious. Something's very bad happening right now on the second floor.
- [04:31]
Marissa Pinson
Cho opened fire.
- [04:33]
Ishwar
There were a couple of faculty members who ran down the hallways. There was a secretary who was fired upon. When the secretary warned us about the gunshots right around the corner from us, I locked the door. But of course, we have glass doors, so I suppose locking the door, in a sense, was simply a security blanket. We were all quite aware that the doors were not particularly useful against an onslaught.
- [05:03]
Marissa Pinson
Cho entered a classroom and shot the professor and 11 students.
- [05:08]
Derek
The first class that he went to was across the hall. We heard the initial shots, maybe 15 to 20 of them. No more than five seconds later, our door opened. The gunman entered our room. The first person he shot was our professor, who was in the front of the classroom. That was, like, just overwhelmingly, just shocking that our professor could fall that easily, that he was dead in almost an instant. That sent everybody into this sense of shock that nobody really knew what to do at that point. So everybody just sort of scrambled after that happened and just hoped for the best, I guess.
- [05:46]
Marissa Pinson
Cho was armed with two semiautomatic pistols and over 400 rounds of ammunition.
- [05:52]
Derek
The gunman was probably about 6ft away from me. He was still at the sort of entrance of the door and had a clear shot on pretty much everybody in the class. I don't remember anything other than, like, the deafening sound of gunshots that sort of drowned out all the screams. I think in my mind it was just pretty much the repetitive sound of gunshots over and over. Then he sort of swung the gun around to the side of the classroom I was on. And at that point we made eye contact. And that was probably one of the scariest moments of my life. When he came into the class, I think he had a pretty well planned out system of how he would kill everybody. He shot the professor first and then shot whoever was closest to him. There was almost just a sort of emptiness in his face. Like, you can look into somebody's eyes and sort of see, like, their expressions and how they're feeling. But with his, it wasn't really anger. It was just more methodical, like he was determined to do something. He was here for a reason, and he was going to try and kill as many of us as he could. He made eye contact with me, and I was looking down. Pretty much the gun, the barrel of his gun. It was slow motion in my mind, but in all, it probably was less than, like, three seconds that I had to react. I saw the bullet come out, and at that point, like, I slid under my desk, so I thought it was safe, but the bullet went through my arm. I sort of scrambled for the back of the room. I put as much sort of desk and objects in the way of him and me as I could. And then after that, he walked into the other side of the room. Not running, not sprinting, just calm, methodical, and then shadowed the people over there.
- [07:32]
Marissa Pinson
11 of the 12 students in Derek's class were shot. The gunman left Derek's classroom and entered the hallway, firing.
- [07:41]
Derek
After he had left our classroom, we heard more shots down the hallway. So all the gunshots were in a fairly close proximity to the class that we were in. And we could tell that they weren't getting very much more distant than maybe 30 or 40ft down the hall. I wasn't really thinking about anything else. Just how in the world can I make it out of here alive?
- [08:01]
Marissa Pinson
Cho continued down the hall towards Ishwar's office.
- [08:04]
Ishwar
There were several students who work in my laboratory who were due in, and my first thought was of their safety. I contacted one on his cell phone. I asked him then to contact some of the other students and form a phone chain system. The noises Were now becoming much more urgent down the hallway because the assassin was making his way down the hall. I thought that it was time to call my wife. Honey, I'm in trouble. You're my spouse. You're my partner. Maybe you should know I'm in a difficult situation. Let's see how this goes.
- [08:42]
Marissa Pinson
The gunman approached Colin's classroom.
- [08:45]
Colin
It was just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And then quiet. And then we heard them. It's again, much louder, much closer. I was the one who called 911 from the room. I don't remember why. I pulled it out and got on the phone and just got underneath the desk where with the operator. And then it was soon after that that show entered our room. I remember seeing the professor move towards the door as everyone went down to the ground. And then I turned and faced the back of the room from where I positioned. And I don't know who exactly was hit first.
- [09:18]
Marissa Pinson
The gunman first shot and killed Collins professor. He then opened fire on students.
- [09:24]
Colin
Boom, boom, boom. And then it went quiet. And then you could hear the clips change and him dropping clips out. He seemed to be very, very familiar with his weapon, and he was very quick with his changing of his clips. You could hear him walking around. He didn't say a word. No one else said a word. In my room, there were a few screams when shots were fired, but there was no yelling. There was no communication.
- [09:50]
Marissa Pinson
Colin and his classmates used their desks for cover.
- [09:54]
Colin
I kind of jumped, dived out sideways, and we made it underneath the seat of one and kind of the table of another one. From the angle that he approached me, I was pretty much covered up off my main parts with only my extremities sticking out. I completely forgot about the phone that I was on at the current time with the police. I remember when I was on the phone with her, describing where I was. And then as soon as Joe entered the room, I didn't say a word. Obviously, I didn't want to be talking on the phone with this man in the room. And I remember hearing the operator on the other line still talking and me doing all that I can to cover it up and not have that heard. I heard bang, bang, bang, bang. And then all of a sudden, I felt the very sharp feeling in my leg and then in my hips. I felt the same kind of feeling. I thought that getting shot by a gun would have been the most excruciating pain that you could ever imagine. But I felt very, very numb.
- [10:49]
Marissa Pinson
Colin was shot in the hip and leg, shattering his femur when he shot.
- [10:55]
Colin
Me the first time, I actually threw the phone from my hand and threw it out as I was kind of reacting to the force of the bullet. And then it was quickly picked up by a girl next to me and then covered up. I heard bang, bang, bang again. And then a clip change, more gunshots. And then the door closed and he was out and he was gone or has gone down the hallway.
- [11:17]
Marissa Pinson
Sixteen of the 17 students in Colin's class were shot. Colin's friend Christina was among the wounded.
- [11:24]
Colin
I looked over at another part of the room and saw Christina hunched in the corner, kind of like in the same position that you'd be in for a tornado drill or hurricane drill against the wall. And she was sandwiched in by two other people who. I don't know how to say this, but they were a lot more red than other people. So I knew that there were people in worse situations. You could still hear him down the hallway when he was visiting other rooms again. But none of us moved. We stayed where we were and we didn't think he was going to come.
- [11:59]
Derek
Back at this point. A lot of the desks are overturned or there's people in the aisles and backpacks and everything else. It was just like the class had been emptied almost. But at the same time, there were still a lot of bodies there. And I just remember seeing like this, the darkness of like the gunpowder and gunshot residue still, like in the air. You can almost smell blood, like sort of that irony smell that goes along with blood. So there's a lab in our classroom. After the initial sort of getting over the shock of what's actually happening, once you comprehend that, you definitely go into sort of this adrenaline fueled survival mode. I realized after I had time to look down that my arm was bleeding and I could see like, I could feel the pain. I was able to sort of unzip my jacket and tie my belt around my arm as a tourniquet sort of helped stop the bleeding. And then with my other hand, I was able to sort of call 911 operator and sort of inform them on the situation.
- [12:58]
Marissa Pinson
Derek and three classmates were injured but mobile.
- [13:02]
Derek
I was pretty much the first one off the floor after he left our classroom. And we heard more shots down the hall. So I figured there was time for me to make it up to the front of the classroom and sort of prevent him from getting back in. I was able to climb on top of the desk and make my way to the front of the classroom fairly quickly. Another person went around and checked everybody else to See if they were okay and sort of help stop the bleeding. Another person called for help out the windows and tried to look for something that we could barricade the door with. The door was pretty flimsy. It wasn't like anything metal or anything else. It was just a typical wooden door. There wasn't anything in the class that was really feasible as far as putting in front of the door and trying to hope that it wouldn't open again. We pretty much figured our best chance was just wedging our feet in between the door and the base of the floor and hoping that that would hold as sort of a barricade. After we heard the gunshots down the hall, we sort of knew that the approximate time that he took in our classroom, that he'd probably taken those other classrooms as well. So we knew he had maybe a 30 second window. Figure out what we would do next and try and make it out of there alive.
- [14:09]
Marissa Pinson
Colin was shot twice and lying on the floor. Cho continued to shoot students in surrounding classrooms.
- [14:16]
Colin
You could still hear him down the hallway when he was visiting other rooms again, but none of us moved. Just generally being very afraid he's going to come back. Very afraid he's going to hear us. On his first trip to each of the rooms, he kind of suppressed everybody and put them down on the ground, make sure they weren't going to go anywhere. Then he more methodically went through each individual aisle. I remember looking at the windows and thinking about the windows as a possible way out, but there was no way that the windows would have worked. He would have been in our room too quickly and we would have all been standing up in front of the windows. It would have been a worse situation. In some of the quiet moments, you know, with the dead silence that nobody's speaking, no one's saying anything. I do remember hearing cell phone vibrations going on in backpacks and just hearing those vibrating. Nobody answering them or anything. They were just vibrating. Get quiet again.
- [15:07]
Marissa Pinson
The students were unaware the police had now surrounded Norris Hall.
- [15:11]
Ishwar
Three minutes into the episode, I saw the SWAT team running by my window. I could see a police officer behind a white pickup truck with his gun drawn, pointing towards my window. I remember desperately thinking that I want those police officers inside, not outside.
- [15:27]
Marissa Pinson
Although injured, Derek and classmate Kaitlin decided to hold the door shut.
- [15:33]
Derek
I was shot in my upper right arm through the bicep. And Caitlin was shot in her right hand. And I think a piece of a bullet grazed her head. So she was bleeding from her hand and her head. And I was just bleeding from my arm. She had her body forced up against near where the handle was, and I had my body sort of laid across the floor pushing up with the upper part of my body near where the hinges were. You heard the last gunshots down the hall and all of A sudden, like 10 seconds later, our door handle's turning and the doors open about 6 inches. And that was just terrifying mentally, emotionally. And you just suffered through probably one of the worst sights that you've ever seen in your life. And then to have that, the opportunity for that to happen again and you be in such close range to the gunman that you probably wouldn't survive again. You go into almost this good versus evil mode. And like you have to prevail. You have to either shut that door again or you don't survive. You probably won't make it out of there alive.
- [16:39]
Marissa Pinson
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- [18:52]
Kim
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- [19:10]
Marissa Pinson
They meet you where you are.
- [19:12]
Kim
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- [19:43]
Marissa Pinson
On the Virginia Tech campus, a student gunman's rampage continues in Norris Hall. Derek and classmate Caitlin are using their bodies to hold their door shut. Then suddenly the gunman is at the.
- [19:56]
Derek
Door and all of a sudden our door handle's turning and the door's open about 6 inches. He was sort of forcing it with his shoulder so he wasn't able to really fire his gun at all. Caitlin and I sort of communicated without words and I think that helped because he wasn't really able to tell where we were through our voices. He just knew we were somewhere behind the door. I could see him through sort of that crack near a crack in the hinges and see what he was doing. He had on a black leather jacket over top of sort of an ammo vest that he stored a lot of their magazines in. I knew that he was going to fire into the door at that point. I wasn't really going to watch and see if I was going to die and watch the process that I was going to die. We backed our bodies up a lot and tried to get out of the way of the bullets coming through. He stepped back and fired probably approximately three shots into the door. Fortunately, I don't think any of those bullets hit anybody. Most of the bullets were perpendicular to the door, so they either went out the windows or just hit the wall. Then we heard more gunshots down the hall, so we figured he wasn't still outside of our door.
- [21:05]
Ishwar
The initial gunshots were very violent. It was like a dut dut dutta da da da sound. It was very sharp. The very violent noise subsided and it seemed to become much more deliberate. But it always seemed to come in pairs. Da da da da da da da.
- [21:22]
Marissa Pinson
Sung Hee Cho returned to Colin's classroom.
- [21:25]
Colin
On his first trip to each of the rooms. He kind of suppressed everybody and put them down on the ground, make sure they weren't going to go anywhere. Then he more methodically went through each individual aisle.
- [21:37]
Marissa Pinson
Cho began shooting the injured students at point blank range.
- [21:41]
Colin
I remember hearing systematic boom, boom, boom, boom boom. He had walked almost all the way to the back of the room close to the windows and then looped around to the front and come down close to the door side on our side.
- [21:56]
Marissa Pinson
So make kind of a U shape, already shot twice. Colin was laying on the floor pretending to be dead.
- [22:03]
Colin
I caught one glimpse of him. I caught his boots, his pants. He was wearing a white shirt and he had a holster over each shoulder. And I never saw his face. And that's all I wanted to see. I'm glad I didn't get to look at him. I think if I would have made eye contact with him, it would have been a more, I don't know, personal thing. I just tried to play dead and act like I wasn't there. The shots got a lot closer to where I was hearing them, a lot louder. He was standing basically at my feet. Probably the scaredest I've ever been in my entire life was at that moment lying on the ground. You just hear bang, bang, bang. And then all of a sudden one of those bangs hits you. I didn't want him to know that I was there. Just play dead. Move, move with the force of the bullets. Just act like a rag doll and just hopefully he'll, he'll go away.
- [22:49]
Marissa Pinson
Colin was shot in the shoulder, in buttock.
- [22:52]
Colin
Just waiting for it to be over. Just saying, just please stop, please stop. I believe it was my, you know, limp body flailing around, which made him believe that, you know, he got me with that one and he could move on.
- [23:07]
Marissa Pinson
Police used shotguns to open the Chained exterior doors and entered Norris Hall.
- [23:12]
Ishwar
There was a loud blast. So this is into the eighth minute. And at that time, all the noise subsided. I saw the SWAT team running by my window and there were now more police officers converging onto the building.
- [23:29]
Derek
After we didn't hear any gunshots for maybe 30 seconds, we heard the police finally enter our hall. And we could hear them yelling, like, come out with your hands up, Things like that. I sort of stuck my head outside the door and saw the police, like, all into the hall, their guns sort of focused down the hall and trying to figure out where he was.
- [23:49]
Ishwar
I heard police officers in the hallway. I heard them shout. And it was very confusing because in the beginning the shout said, well, I found two in the bathroom. And I thought, well, perhaps there were two gunmen and they found the gunman. There was another voice that said, I found two more. They're not saying much. And at that time, a sense of dread came over me. The police officers kept shouting, I found some here, I found some there. And the sense of dread sort of increased.
- [24:28]
Marissa Pinson
Colin had been shot four times and was lying face down on the floor. The gunman was still in Colin's classroom.
- [24:35]
Colin
I remember hearing his bullets, and then I remember hearing police outside. That's when I knew that you could hear them moving around outside, trying to get in the building somehow. I heard his footsteps. I heard him moving around. I think I remember hearing him move towards the window and looking out the window so he could obviously hear the police coming in, trying to get into the building. I thought that he was waiting because it was just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, and then quiet. So I thought he was waiting in front of our room and he was waiting for the police.
- [25:08]
Derek
After we heard the police outside of our hall and after I sort of peeked my head out, I think we all sort of started to discuss whether we should try and make a run for it or not. At this point, the police are on the other end of the hall from where we heard the last gunshots fired. So there's probably maybe 20ft between us and the last gunshots fired and 20ft between us and the police. So it was sort of like we'd be caught in the middle if he came out of the room and started firing at the police.
- [25:35]
Marissa Pinson
Colin was lying face down as police police entered his classroom.
- [25:39]
Colin
As soon as the police came in the door, they opened it up. They said, shoot her down, Shoot her down immediately. And I was like, he's dead. How did this happen? I remember being shot and then hearing one or two more shots. And then it was the silence.
- [25:53]
Marissa Pinson
Cho had shot himself in the head.
- [25:56]
Colin
He could obviously hear the police coming in, trying to get into the building, which is when he believed that it was, you know, his run was over.
- [26:03]
Derek
It was.
- [26:03]
Colin
It was time to go, and he killed himself. I knew that once the police were there that I was safe, that everything was okay. I was concerned that we were all laying on the floor, not moving around, that they wouldn't find someone that was alive. I remember telling them Christina was over there and she was alive, telling them, Emily was there, they were alive, I was alive. And then I remember hearing them go through their triage and saying, this person is blue, this person is green, this person is red. And then I hear this person's black, black tag, black tag, black tag. And then I heard black tag. And I said, oh, my God. It's like people have actually been killed.
- [26:41]
Marissa Pinson
33 people died and 23 more were injured in the Virginia Tech shootings. The student gunman, Seung Hee Cho, had a history of mental illness.
- [26:50]
Colin
The thought of the event comes up just about every day. Something will spark the memory of it. Just to think about the classmates that I had at the time, and then they're not here anymore. Makes me wonder, why them and not me?
- [27:04]
Marissa Pinson
In Colin's classroom, only five students survived. Colin made the first 911 call, which helped police locate the gunman.
- [27:13]
Colin
I believe he had all the cards in his hand. He was in complete control of the situation, and he laid the cards down. Some were face up and some were face down. And I was one of the lucky ones.
- [27:22]
Marissa Pinson
Colin returned to Virginia Tech to graduate.
- [27:25]
Colin
It's something that's happened in my life that was negative, and I'm just trying to turn that and not have that be something that defines who I am.
- [27:33]
Marissa Pinson
Seung hi cho fired nearly 200 rounds before killing himself. The entire attack lasted less than 10 minutes.
- [27:41]
Ishwar
It's very difficult for a group of individuals to overcome someone with automatic weapons who has planned clinically, who's brutal, who's lost rationality, who has no concern for his own safety. He's already made up his mind that he's going to be a suicide assassin.
- [28:03]
Marissa Pinson
Five Virginia Tech professors were killed that day while protecting students.
- [28:08]
Ishwar
It takes a tremendous act of courage to come to the aid of someone else. Unprotected, uncertain of what one might find lurking around the corner. Because of the involvement of all these people, many of us are here today, and we wouldn't have been. I'm not absolutely sure that I'd be here.
- [28:30]
Marissa Pinson
Speaking about the incident in Derek's classroom, eight students survived.
- [28:35]
Derek
I survived because of quick reactions, not only of myself, but but because of my classmates and the professors on our floor. In our classroom specifically, there are four of us who were able to get up and that were conscious and able to do something to sort of help prolong our lives. So teamwork definitely played a huge role in not only my survival, but maybe in the survival of other students as well.
- [29:01]
Marissa Pinson
The Virginia Tech school shootings were the deadliest in US History.
- [29:06]
Derek
I'm definitely more appreciative of life. Every day that I go on is another day that I have gone on and I've survived. When you go through something like this, it's definitely something that gives you a new perspective on what is a big deal and what isn't. I definitely appreciate every day, every moment, every single small thing that you experience in life.
- [29:32]
Marissa Pinson
Hi, I'm Stassi Schroeder. On my podcast, I share candid updates from my personal life, chat with some of my best friends about what's going on in our lives, give commentary on the latest pop culture headlines, and sometimes deep dive into random topics. I'm obsessed with, like, human design. It's a bit all over the place, but that's how I like it. And you will, too. Listen to my podcast, Stassi, wherever you get your podcasts.
- [29:58]
Derek
Foreign.
- [30:03]
Marissa Pinson
It's August 2007 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Kim is driving a youth group bus carrying 53 children and eight adults. It is crossing the 35 West Bridge during rush hour traffic. A semi truck was passing them on.
- [30:19]
Kim
The left as we were coming across the bridge and stuff. The kids were, you know, doing the honking gesture for the semi truck and he was honking at them and he was waving to us and stuff and that. And it was. The kids love that. They do it all the time.
- [30:33]
Marissa Pinson
Ariana is Kim's daughter.
- [30:35]
Ariana
There's a truck next to us, and the bus was a little further ahead and he sped up and then he looked over to see what we were doing and we were all like. And everybody was yelling, honk, honk. My mom got to see him because he was right window to window. And she went like this to him. And he was just like.
- [31:00]
Kim
He was pretty much right next to me as we were approaching over the lock and dam. And then the next thing you know, the bridge started swaying. It was almost like it was a suspension bridge. And it started swaying back and forth, back and forth. And all of a sudden it was just loud rumbling, like, you know, Something was falling.
- [31:19]
Marissa Pinson
The massive center section of the bridge collapsed into the Mississippi River. Seconds later, the outer section that the bus was on started to fall.
- [31:29]
Kim
The first reaction is, you know, wherever. Whatever happening, I need to hang on, and I need to keep this bus straight, and I need to have my foot on the brake. I looked over to my left because I thought the semi truck was hitting the bus. And I looked over, and it wasn't hitting us. And I looked over to the right, and I just was like, I don't know what was happening. And I was. I was getting, you know, scared.
- [31:54]
Ariana
And I looked up, and my mom was. We were all, like, bouncing, and my mom was over in the seat, like, bouncing up and down, and we couldn't see nothing. And it was. It was gone. The truck.
- [32:07]
Marissa Pinson
The bus and semi truck fell 45ft as the edge of the bridge they were on collapsed. Jimmy is a youth group counselor.
- [32:16]
Jimmy
I remember hearing someone scream, the bridge is. The bridge is falling. It was a lot like a roller coaster. You know, you feel weightless, and I remember reaching for the seat in front of me, like, you know, I was gonna brace myself or catch myself, but it was just like a free fall.
- [32:29]
Kim
The kids weren't. They didn't know what was going on. They didn't. It was kind of like nobody knew what was going on.
- [32:34]
Jimmy
Things just kind of started falling apart around us.
- [32:37]
Kim
You're hitting things, and things are hitting you, and it was really. It was just a weird noise.
- [32:42]
Ariana
I kind of got scared because I didn't know what was happening. I thought. I thought we were going in the water, we were gonna die.
- [32:49]
Kim
You didn't even know how to react. It was just. It happened so quick and so fast. My main concern was wherever we were gonna land, we weren't gonna tip over hopefully, and we were gonna land straight, and I was gonna have my foot on the brakes. So we didn't roll anywhere or on top of anything.
- [33:06]
Marissa Pinson
The bus fell 45ft. When the outer section of the bridge collapsed into the riverbank, we bounced, and.
- [33:12]
Kim
Then we came back up, and then we bounced again, and we landed, and I held my foot on the brake in the steering wheel, and I looked over, and I looked around, and I'm just in shock, not knowing what's going on. The dust came across, and the kids just started screaming.
- [33:29]
Jimmy
Once we finally came to arrest, they were screaming for a couple seconds, and then it was just silence.
- [33:36]
Marissa Pinson
Jimmy had a severe concussion.
- [33:39]
Jimmy
I remember tasting blood in my mouth, and I remember kind of feeling like a gravelly. Like I had sand in my mouth type of feeling. And I remember spitting and pieces of my teeth coming out.
- [33:48]
Ariana
I just went black. And I kind of had a blackout, though, because then I fell down in my seat, and I tried to get back up, but I couldn't breathe. And I was still laying down. And I'm just like, mom.
- [33:59]
Kim
Mom.
- [33:59]
Ariana
And she couldn't hear me. I knew she couldn't.
- [34:02]
Kim
And I couldn't move. My seatbelt had me locked back into my seat tight.
- [34:06]
Marissa Pinson
Kim had several crushed vertebrae from the impact. Julie, a youth counselor, was thrown from her seat.
- [34:13]
Kim
And I looked down, and I seen Julie in the doorway. She was upside down backwards with her legs against the door. And I didn't know what was happening or what happened.
- [34:24]
Ariana
She actually flipped over the seat, and the seat that was in front of us, which it went down to the staircase. I heard glass shatter. I saw her foot in the doorway. And then I saw her one foot, like, over her head, and she was all, like, in a ball, and her arm was, like, hanging up. And I thought she died.
- [34:44]
Kim
I did see the blood, and then the window was broken, but she didn't move for a second. So I thought, you know, for the worse. And I said, julie. Julie, are you okay? Julie? I held my foot on the brake in the steering wheel, and I looked over, and I looked around because there was a big dust cloud from the beginning when it first landed. And I looked down, and I seen Julie in the doorway. She didn't move for a second. So I thought, you know, for the worse. And I said, julie. Julie, are you okay? Julie? And that's when, you know, she said, kim, what happened? What happened? And she was so faint when she.
- [35:21]
Ariana
Said it, I literally thought she was dead. And then she started moving, and I was so thankful that she wasn't dead.
- [35:31]
Marissa Pinson
The bus landed precariously on an inclined section of the collapsed bridge. Counselors started to evacuate the 53 children from the back of the bus.
- [35:39]
Jimmy
Jeremy, one of the other youth workers, got up and opened the back door, and we started getting all the kids out. I was in the very front of the bus, so all the kids were getting out in front of me. They all got out, you know, one by one.
- [35:50]
Kim
We were at the incline, so then I figured we were probably. We'd probably roll backwards. I knew that if I let my foot off the brake, the bus was gonna roll, and it was gonna roll on top of them children that were getting off the bus.
- [36:02]
Marissa Pinson
Kim held the brake despite her spinal injury.
- [36:05]
Kim
My kids were crying. They're like, mom, are you okay. What happened? What happened? Mom, are you okay? They weren't gonna leave. They wanted to stay with me. And they kept telling me, mom, we wanna stay with you. We wanna stay with you.
- [36:16]
Ariana
She told us, we have to get off the bus. And I said, no, I can't.
- [36:21]
Kim
So I had to turn around and told them. I said, you need to get your bus off this bus now. And that's when, you know, I wanted to lose it. I wanted to cry, but I held it together.
- [36:33]
Marissa Pinson
And that.
- [36:34]
Kim
Because I knew if they seen me cry, that it would make it worse. But I knew that, you know, if I were to not make it, that the kids all made it and they were okay, and it was okay with me. If I didn't make it through it, it would have been okay.
- [37:01]
Marissa Pinson
Over 100 vehicles were on the bridge when it collapsed.
- [37:05]
Jimmy
I saw all these people around me crying and hurt. And that's kind of when I realized that this was a much bigger thing than just our school bus. It was a really, really overwhelming kind of sense of loss and despair, I guess. I remember seeing Kim's daughter crying, and I asked her why she was crying.
- [37:29]
Ariana
I started crying, and then Jimmy came up, and I'm just like, jimmy, my mom's on the bus. Someone has to go get her.
- [37:35]
Kim
In an accident, usually your seatbelt has locks so that you don't get thrown forward or whatnot. It keeps you in your spot. It locked so tight that it was against me so tight that I couldn't move forward or move my body at all. And I kept trying to release it, and it wouldn't release.
- [37:51]
Marissa Pinson
As Jimmy boarded the bus, the semi truck alongside it caught fire.
- [37:56]
Jimmy
I remember seeing smoke. There was a lot of smoke. I don't know if it was in flames. You know what they say, there's smoke, there's fire. And I kept telling her, kim, you gotta get off the bus. You gotta get off. And she kept telling me that she couldn't.
- [38:09]
Colin
That she.
- [38:09]
Jimmy
You know, she was in a lot of pain and she didn't think she could move.
- [38:12]
Kim
And I couldn't move. My seatbelt had me locked back into my seat tight.
- [38:16]
Jimmy
I looked at her and I was like, kim, you gotta get off the bus now. Because, you know, I didn't know if it was gonna. If it was gonna fall over. And there was a semi next to us that was on fire. And I didn't know if, you know, if that was gonna blow up.
- [38:25]
Kim
I was pounding on it, and it wouldn't release. And then all of a sudden, the bus shifted A little more. And then I got scared. I got really, really scared.
- [38:34]
Jimmy
I remember seeing smoke and I looked at her and I was like, kim, you gotta get off the bus now. There was a sign my next to us that was on fire. And I didn't know if that was gonna blow up or what that was gonna do.
- [38:45]
Marissa Pinson
The collapsed bridge was unstable, and I couldn't move.
- [38:48]
Kim
My seatbelt had me locked back into my seat tight.
- [38:51]
Jimmy
She kept telling me that she couldn't. Cause her back hurt and her legs were hurt. And then the bus shifted.
- [38:56]
Kim
When the bus shifted, it kind of gave a little slack. And then I hit my seatbelt again and it released. So then I was able to get up, and I used Jimmy's back like this. I had my arms like this on his back. And I leaned on him and I.
- [39:11]
Jimmy
Grabbed on and just kind of gave her support. I didn't carry her so much as it was. Give her the support she needed to be able to stand on her own and help her down the aisle.
- [39:19]
Kim
I walked probably about. About 500ft, and I. I fell. I couldn't walk anymore. I hurt so bad.
- [39:27]
Ariana
He came out with my mom, and I was happy that he did that. And I'm really thankful that he went on the bus and he got my mom off, because I wouldn't have. I would only I wouldn't have a mom.
- [39:39]
Kim
You could hear the, you know, the helicopters and the ambulances and the fire trucks. You could hear all the sirens going off and that, and people just kind of frantically running everywhere. Well, then the next thing you know, I look up and the semi truck is engulfed in smoke and flames. And I said, there's. The guy's in the truck still. The guy is in the semi truck still. You gotta get him out. I completely bawled then too, because I knew he was in the truck and he was. He was not gonna make it out.
- [40:09]
Ariana
I'm just like, no, he couldn't have died. He was the one who waved high to us and honked at us and had a blast. We had a blast, and he's now gone.
- [40:24]
Marissa Pinson
The semi truck driver died on impact. None of the children on the bus suffered any serious injuries.
- [40:30]
Jimmy
It's kind of weird because for weeks and months afterwards, and still now people come up to me and say, you're so lucky. You're so lucky. And at first I really struggled with that. I was like, you know, I'm not lucky. I was in this horrible, horrible accident. The chances of being on that bridge and on that bus are so slim to none. That I'm not lucky. I'm unlucky.
- [40:46]
Marissa Pinson
13 people died and over 100 were injured in the bridge collapse.
- [40:51]
Jimmy
There's so many things that could have gone wrong that didn't. We fell in the best place we could have fallen. As far as I'm concerned. If we had been 10ft forward, we would have ended up like dead Semite. I survived because of chance. I survived because Kim was able to keep the bus where she kept it.
- [41:09]
Marissa Pinson
Kim is still recovering from her back injuries. She credits the bus with preventing more serious injuries to the children.
- [41:16]
Kim
The bus through this accident held up extremely well. The damage on the bus was mainly in the front. All the seats stayed intact. All the kids weren't hurt. They're extremely safe. And I would never have a doubt in my mind putting my kids on the school bus and ever.
- [41:36]
Ariana
So now I have everybody in my family still here now and me and my little brother here and so is my mom. So I'm pretty happy that all of us survived.