“It’s the worst thing that’s ever happened in Floyd County…the very worst thing.”

The above quote was from Josephine Fields, a resident of Floyd County, KY, to describe one of the worst tragedies in Appalachian history. February 28th will mark the 66th anniversary of the Prestonsburg school bus disaster. Sixty-six years may sound like a long time but for those who remember the tragedy there is a pain that is still vivid.

February 28, 1958, began like a lot of days this time of year in Prestonsburg as it was cold, cloudy and had been raining heavily the night before. The Floyd County No. 27 bus made its normal rounds eventually loading up 48 elementary and high school kids headed for their classes. The day seemed average and typical with kids aboard doing what children do on their way to school – some were talking, laughing and joking, some were still sleepy from the early morning hour, others were sitting quietly just waiting to get to school – no one saw how this day would turn so tragic in the blink of an eye.

Bus 27 was making its way down U.S. Route 23 when up ahead there was a wrecker attempting to pull out a pickup truck which had gotten stuck in a ditch. The driver of the bus, John Alex DeRossett, reportedly never slowed down as bus 27 plowed into the rear of the wrecker. The impact of the collision caused the school bus to take a hard left sending it down a 50-foot embankment into the rain-swollen Levisa Fork of the Big Sandy River. DeRossett is thought to have been instantly knocked unconscious leaving the children to fend for themselves. The bus initially sat bobbing on top of the river as it rapidly began to fill with water allowing some children to escape out windows and the rear emergency door.

Survivors described the horrific scene of brothers and sisters frantically searching for each other on the bus. A few small children hugged up to each other paralyzed by fear and uncertain of what to do. More and more children jumped into the fast-moving current of the river as rushing water continued to fill the bus. Children were seen grabbing on to tree branches, holding on for dear life, as others were left flailing in the water, unable to swim as the powerful current began to sweep them away one by one. One of the most heartbreaking descriptions was a witness who spoke of seeing little hands and arms reaching out the windows of the bus in a desperate grasp for a rescuer that never came. The bus soon disappeared completely submerged under the waters of the Big Sandy River. The headcount of survivors stood at 22 meaning that 26 children and the bus driver were still missing.

Volunteer rescuers came in droves in an attempt to locate any additional survivors but the bus was nowhere to be found. Hours turned into days as the Kentucky National Guard and local volunteers worked around the clock to locate the missing bus. Finally, the bus was located by Navy divers some 250 yards from the point it entered the water when they spotted the body of one of the missing boys floating not far from the surface, as he had gotten stuck in a window of the bus when trying to escape. Bulldozers pulled the bus from the water an agonizingly long 53 hours after the wreck. The bus was filled with mud as aboard they found the body of DeRossett and 14 of the children leaving 12 children still unaccounted for. Nets were cast across the Big Sandy River several miles from the accident in an attempt to catch other bodies. Boats dragged the river day after day attempting to recover the unaccounted for missing children. Finally. the last body was found 69 days after the initial wreck almost three miles downstream from the accident giving a very small measure of closure to the grieving in Floyd County. The final death toll was 27 including the 27-year-old bus driver and the 26 school children ranging from 8 to 17 years of age. Four families lost two of their children and one family lost all three of their children to the tragedy.

The aftermath of the tragedy was a grim scene of funeral after funeral being held for the deceased. Each funeral touched off a new round of inconsolable, grieving families and friends mourning their lost loved ones. Many of the survivors of the wreck felt a sense of guilt for having survived while others perished, not an uncommon reaction to these types of tragedies. The emotional and psychological toll the tragedy took on those impacted is impossible to quantify.

Everyone was left with the question of why the accident happened – a question that has never been fully answered. Speculation of everything from the bus driver suffering a heart attack to the driver of the wrecker backing up into the bus all proved to be false. In any case, nothing will change what happened that fateful day that resulted in 27 lives taken way too soon. The town placed a monument in memory of the lost although it is not in the spot of the accident – the families preferred to not have a marker there. At the time it occurred, the Prestonsburg bus disaster was the deadliest in the history of the United States and is still in the top three worst in the nation’s history. Kentucky would suffer another equally deadly bus crash 30 years later with the Carrollton bus disaster that also killed 27 in 1988.

As any parent knows, the thought of losing a young child is unbearable and to lose two or more at the same time is incomprehensible. We all have to trust that when our kids are out of our care they are safely at school. The terror and agony experienced by the families in Floyd County is a sobering reminder that despite our best efforts we are all at the mercy of fate. I often hear parents complain when school is cancelled for weather on a day that ends up not being severe but you’ll never get that from me. I personally would much rather the school system be safe than sorry and I trust God to do the rest. I know reading about and researching this made me give my children a couple of extra long hugs this week. – Shane

*The Prestonsburg school bus disaster inspired a documentary entitled, “The Very Worst Thing” by Kentucky filmmaker Michael Crisp and two songs, “No School Bus in Heaven” by the Stanley Brothers and “The Tragedy of Bus 27” by Ralph Bowman.*