2016-05-14 - 5:36 p.m.
Today is the anniversary of a horrific bus crash that happened in Kentucky. It was the famous bus crash where the drunk guy was traveling the wrong way, hit the bus, and the gas tank on the bus just exploded like a bomb. The bus was returning from a day at an amusement park. It was a church youth group. Two kids that I loved were on that bus. They were very dear friends of ours. They were among the very few who were invited to my wedding and the girl was my flower girl. The boy was a begrudging witness to my wedding, since all of his little drawings depicted me and him holding hands in front of our home that he thought we would share someday. I was his first crush and he said I was "purtier than wonder woman".
His sister was a perfect, beautiful child and she had grown into a sweet, shy teenager. Just barely though, because she was only 13 when this crash took her life. Today I watched the documentary that was made about the crash and it was heartbreaking to watch. One of the hospital workers on the documentary said the most tragic thing to her in this whole ordeal was this one young boy who was just completely distraught and frantically searching for his sister, saying "I need my sister". The film showed him and then showed his sister's picture and the lady speaking said "I later heard that his sister had died." That was Em.
My family got that terrible call in the middle of the night when the kids were in the crash and I grieved and felt terrible for this couple who lost so much and for this boy who had been left with an awful, traumatizing memory and survivor guilt because his sister was gone and he lived. But today I got a glimpse into the rest of the people's stories and I can't begin to imagine how this must have felt for my dear friends to not only lose their daughter and have an injured, traumatized son, but they also lost 25 close friends! So many families in their church were forever changed on that night.
The film is called "Impact After The Crash" and it is offered for free tonight until about 10:55 pm (the time when the crash occurred)on Vimeo.com. You have to sign up for a free account and then put "MADD" in as the promo code to get it free. I think this film should be shown in schools. It really brings home the message of how much devastation can be caused by one bad decision.
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