MEMPHIS, Tenn — A 13-year-old football player aboard the bus that crashed Monday morning in Saline County, Arkanas is speaking about his experience after returning to Memphis Monday evening.
“I was frozen soon as I saw people start bleeding,” said Ty’Jier Terrell, who said he woke up when he felt something hit his head.
Terrell said he saw some of his teammates injured and could hear panic and confusion after the bus rolled off I-30.
“Everybody was screaming, crying,” he said.
“I was scared ’cause everybody was bleeding and I had a lot of blood all over my t-shirt before I changed at the hospital,” he added.
Terrell’s left eyelid is visibly bruised. He was too disturbed by the injury on the right side of his head to show it on television, but it took 18 stitches to patch up.
His mother, Deidra Terrell, got a phone call about the crash in the middle of the night.
“Everything stops. Your whole world stops,” she said.
She wasted no time getting to Little Rock to be by her son’s side where she learned of the heroism of some of the coaches aboard the bus.
“There was one coach actually, who almost lost his life saving a child. He threw himself in front of the child on impact,” she said.
Deidra Terrell said she also knew the mother of the little boy who was killed, 9-year-old Kameron Johnson. She said she last saw him days ago as he was boarding the bus leaving Memphis.
“He was out with his teammates and they were running around, doing what boys do, you know.”
Shelby County Schools is partnering with School Seed Memphis to raise money to help the families involved in the crash. You can donate here.