Supported by
Roy Rogers' Child And 7 Are Killed In Crash of Bus
August 18, 1964, Page 63Buy Reprints
SAN CLEMENTE, Calif., Aug. 17 (AP)—Eight persons, including the adopted Koreanborn daughter of the Western film stars Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, were killed today when a busload of children crashed into seven other vehicles on Highway 101.
The California highway patrol said 42 persons were injured—40 of them children from the Disciples of Christ Chapel of the Canyon Church at Canoga Park, Calif.
The coroner's office said one of the dead was Deborah Lee Rogers, who was 12 years old last Friday. Deborah was one of the Rogerses' nine children, five of whom were adopted.
Another of those killed was 11‐year‐old Joan Russell, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Russell of Granada Hills, Calif.
The other dead, all in one vehicle, were not immediately identified.
The disaster occurred as the bus, driven by the Rev. Lawrence Elton White, 49, was returning from Tijuana, Mexico. He had driven 6S persons, mostly children, on a monthly outing to take food and clothing to La Esperanza, a Tijuana orphanage that the church has aided.
The bus was six miles south of San Clemente when, according to a passenger, 18‐year‐old Janie Bartley: “There was a loud explosion. It was the tire. Larry [Mr. White] was trying to hold on, but the big steering wheel just started spinning in his hands. It was bumpy, and we lurched over on the other side of the road, and then we began to hit cars.”
A highway patrol officer, Merrel Kissinger, said the bus came to rest against a palm tree at the edge of a 40‐foot bluff over a creek bed.
”The palm tree may have kept the bus from falling down into the bed,” he said. “If that had happened, it would have been much worse.”
Miss Bartley, of Canoga Park, said the Rogers girl had been standing, as were several other children, at the front of the bus, chatting with Mr. White and watching the traffic.
Miss Evans, when first told of the accident, said: “I've heard it, but I can't accept it. I just can't. Roy is in the hospital, and I can't tell him of this until I am certain.”
Mr. Rogers is convalescing from neck surgery.
Advertisement
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment