A concrete truck driver confessed to using cocaine before he hit a school bus packed with pre-K students, causing it to flip over and then roll several times down a Texas highway.
Ulises Rodriguez Montoya, a 5-year-old student at Tom Green Elementary School in Buda, was killed in the March 22 crash, as was 33-year-old Ryan Wallace, the driver of another vehicle involved.
Montoya was returning from a field trip from the Bastrop Zoo, traveling on a highway in the rural outskirts of Austin, when a concrete truck crossed over the center line and crashed into the bus. Passengers onboard included 44 students and 11 adults, according to the Hays Consolidated Independent School District.
The driver of the concrete truck, identified as 42-year-old Jerry Hernandez in court documents obtained by KEYE, was taken to the hospital after the crash. There, he told authorities he used marijuana the night before and cocaine the morning of the crash. Hernandez also claimed he’d only slept for 3 hours before getting behind the wheel around 12:30 a.m.
No charges have yet been filed and an investigation into the matter is ongoing.
On Thursday, the Hays Consolidated Independent School District released dashcam video of the deadly crash. Officials also previously confirmed the school bus, a 2011 model, did not have seatbelts. Newer buses have been fitted with belts since 2017.
School district superintendent Eric Wright remembered Montoya as “a precious young boy,” while Wallace’s loved ones recalled his optimism and kindness.
Wallace, a University of Texas at Austin graduate student just days away from defending his dissertation, was on his way to pick up his sister’s children when he was killed.
“He was an excited new homeowner in Bastrop, a proud UT longhorn, and a nameless victim in this incident dubbed ‘passenger vehicle’ by many media outlets,” the Wallace family said in a statement to KXAN. “Our family wants people to know my brother, Ryan Wallace, because to know him was to love him…he was one of the brightest minds and most shining personalities in any room.”
