School Bus Tragedy

I've been asked to blog about the deadly school bus accident on Monday. I'm not sure what I can say about the event. I was not directly involved like our other reporters. Brad and I were acually at the Marshall County Courthouse. We were there because a recount was being done on the county commission chairmans race.

Brad had just left to go get video of Albertville's mayor, back on the job from an illness. I was still at the courthouse when my cell phone rang. Our news operations manager Keith Lowhorne was on the other end talking a mile a minute. He was saying, "as soon as you guys get here, I need you to go to Drake Avenue. That's where the technology center is." Well, I had no idea what he was talking about. Actually, I thought he had called the wrong number. Turns out he thought someone else had already called me. So he fills me in on what's going on.

I call Brad and tell him to come back. We jump in our vehicle and off to Huntsville we go. We go straight to the Tech Center. I went inside and tried to get some info from the principal. He was very helpful. I went back outside and called in a live report. Brad and I then went back in the school and got an interview with the principal.

Off to the station we go. Brad dumps the interview down to tape and gets it back to the control room. I get set up in front of the newsroom camera. Lisa and Jerry toss to me and talk about the interview and we air it.

So, after that, it was a quick slice of pizza. Down the street Brad, Ellis and I go to the scene. We were told there would be a news conference there. We get there and are told, no, it's at the hospital. So off to the hospital we go. Skylink (the satellite truck) isn't far behind. I grab a bag full of stuff out of Skylink and up a flight of stairs I go. Other 19ers are there too, running around, trying to get things set so we can carry this news conference live. Amber Stuart is already there. She will be the live reporter for the news conference. But she doesn't have anyone to run the live camera. Her photographer, Dion Hose, needs to record the news conference. So, I became photographer Carson Clark and ran camera for more than an hour.

By the time we are through, Brad has left with Ellis for another story. I'm stranded at the hospital. Amber and Dion are staying put with one of our live vans. Dion goes to get his jeep, parked across the street for me to drive back to the station. While he is gone, a family member of one of the kids hurt comes out of the hospital. I grab Dions camera and shoot an interview with her with Amber. I finally get to go back to the station.

I get there and our news director Denise Vickers says, "I need you to write something up on your technology center stuff for the 5 and 6 shows." And she wants me to take the interviews Dion and Amber have gotten during the day and turn them into a short story for five and a more expanded version(called a package) for the 6. So I start working on that, logging interviews, writing and editing. I'm live in the 5 and the 6.

That's finally done. Then, Denise says "I've got a number for the mother of one of the kids killed in the crash. I want you to call them and see if they have a picture they wouldn't mind us using." She also asks me to see if they wouldn't mind talking to us.

I call and they say, sure come on by. Brad, (I had been reunited with him by then), and I head up the street from the station. We interview the mother, step father and cousin of Chrstine Collier. We get some dinner on the way back to the station. We put together a story for the 10pm and I go live during the 10. We also had to put together a shorter version for the morning news.

The day was finally done. Seems like a lot. But it was actually a lot less stressful than what many others at the station went through.