CHESTER COUNTY, S.C. — After a Lexington County school bus flipped over when its tire blew out, parents are now asking how fast it was going before the crash.
One boy was killed in the crash, and three dozen more victims were hurt in the crash on Interstate 77 last week in Chester County.
While many students are mourning the loss of a classmate, one mother told Channel 9’s Hannah Goetz she’s starting to question how this happened.
Ashanti Thames told Channel 9 last week that she was filled with gratitude because her son was OK during the same field trip. But after receiving a screen recording from another student, she’s questioning if speed was a factor in the deadly crash.
“Why were they going 73 [miles per hour] or were they allowed to go 73 ... in that type of bus?” Thames said.
Another student’s Life360 app was tracking their trip on the bus. It allows parents to see where their child is, and how fast they’re going.
In the screen recording, you can see the bus traveling from Charlotte back to Lexington, and it hits speeds in the 70s before the crash. Another screenshot showed the top speed was over 80 miles per hour.
“The bus was going 73 and that just didn’t sit well with me,” Thames said. “I know the speed limit, but having a bus with that many students on there, and not knowing if those tires could have handled that speed or anything in the road, that makes me question.”
State law caps school bus speeds at 55 miles per hour on the interstate in both North Carolina and South Carolina.
If those numbers are accurate, Thames wonders if that contributed to the tire blowing out.
“The fact that you’re going 73 and you have a blowout, I honestly think if they were going a lot slower, we wouldn’t have a bus that was flipped over on its side,” Thames said.
She learned over the weekend that her son has a separated shoulder after being slammed from the abrupt stop of the bus. He has to see an orthopedic surgeon.
We reached out to the South Carolina State Highway Patrol and the school district about the speed of the bus. Troopers said they won’t know until they finish the investigation, and the school district said it will release the information once they get it.
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