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© Palmer Marler Funeral Home
Reprinted with permission
Submitted by: Jo Aguirre
COMBS, Sandra DeAnn, 16, died Tuesday. Services 10 a.m. Saturday, Church of the First Born under direction of Palmer and Marler.
Muskogee Daily Phoenix and Times-Democrat (OK) March 31, 2005
Father, communities mourn loss of teen and truck driver.
By ROCHELLE HINES- Carlos Combs had just pulled into the driveway of his Agra home when he saw a school bus wreck, backed out and sped down the road about a half-mile to a Payne County intersection.
"I was the first one on the scene. I wanted to see if it was my girl, if she was all right," Combs said of his 16-year-old daughter, Sandra Deann. "When I got there, I found her. She was dead."
Sandra Combs and Carl Edward Tarver, 57, of Cushing, were killed when the Ripley school bus in which she was riding collided with Tarver's flatbed pickup truck around 4:05 p.m. Tuesday at Oklahoma Highway 18 and Eseco Road, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol reported.
The bus was eastbound on a county road when it failed to yield to the pickup, which was pulling a cattle trailer northbound on State Highway 18, Trooper Steve Burrows said in a report on the accident. The truck crashed into the bus on the front passenger side, Burrows said.
Firefighters worked for about two hours to free Tarver from the wreckage of his truck, but he died of massive head injuries at the scene, the patrol said.
Another passenger on the bus, Halli McKintire, sustained head and internal injuries and was taken to Cushing Regional Hospital in stable condition, the OHP said. Her hometown and age were not available. The bus driver, Jimmie Sue Blose, 50, was flown by helicopter to St. John Medical Center in Tulsa, the patrol reported. Media relations coordinator Hether Haddox said Wednesday morning she could not release information on Blose.
Sandra Combs was pinned for about 1 1/2 hours by jammed bus doors before Cushing firefighters were able to cut her free, troopers said. She suffered massive head injuries and was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident.
"She was sitting toward the front of the bus and a couple of friends were nearby, seated across or seated in the back of her," Superintendent Kenny Beams said. "None of the students were probably a mile or more than a mile away from home. It was toward the tail-end of the bus route," Beams said.
There were eight students and the driver on the bus, Beams said. Beams said Blose's family told officials she will need surgeries in the future, but was expected to recover. Officials hoped that McKintire, also a high school student, would be released from the hospital sometime Wednesday, Beams said.
The other students weren't hurt seriously, he said. "The impact was pretty severe to me, obviously we had the one fatality but the other kids were in good shape, without serious injury," Beams said.
Blose had the commercial driver's license that was needed to drive the bus, said Lt. Brandon Kopepasah, OHP spokesman. Investigators could find no infractions on her driving record, Kopepasah said.
The accident shook the community and the small school district of about 300 elementary pupils and 125 high school students.
Classes were voluntary on Wednesday and buses didn't run, Beams said. Attendance figures weren't immediately available
Ten school counselors from neighboring districts were dispatched to Ripley to talk with students or to help train school staffers. "We're going to resume at least our bus routes and time schedule tomorrow (Thursday)," Beams said. "We'll make our internal schedule a little more relaxed than that so kids will have the ability to maneuver around school for counseling."
Beams said Sandra Deann was well-liked, something Carlos Combs knew. He said his daughter enjoyed being friends with others, particularly underprivileged children. "I think that has to do with maybe because she was adopted and maybe there was a sense in her that made her want to reach out," he said.
Carlos Combs said he and his wife adopted Sandra Deann after they couldn't have children. Sandra Deann asked her parents for a little brother or sister when she was 8, but Carlos Combs said they told her if she got a sibling, it would be because God decided to give them one.
"Five years later, we gave natural birth to a boy," said Carlos Combs, a minister at the Church of the First Born in Cushing. "We told her that he's here because she prayed and God answered her prayers."
Carlos Combs said his family has some questions.
"We know it's tragic and we know accidents happen, but we feel like had there possibly been some seatbelts on the bus available that our daughter possibly wouldn't have lost her life," he said.
A woman answering the telephone at the Tarver residence in Cushing declined comment, saying the family wanted to grieve in peace.
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