LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) – A third grader was killed and at least 45 people were injured when a charter bus carrying youth football players from Tennessee rolled off an interstate and overturned before sunrise Monday in central Arkansas, authorities said.
Arkansas State Police said the bus crashed along Interstate 30 near Benton, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) southwest of Little Rock. Police said most of the injured were children and that they were taken to hospitals in Little Rock and Benton.
The elementary-school age players from Orange Mound Youth Association in southeast Memphis were returning home after playing in a tournament in the Dallas area over the weekend, according to Memphis TV station WMC. Orange Mound is a historically black neighborhood that unites around its highly competitive youth football program.
Damous Hailey, who was one of about half a dozen adults on the bus, said it was carrying players from 10 Orange Mound Youth Association football teams who played in all-star squads in a tournament in Texas.
He told The Commercial Appeal newspaper that the bus swerved then flipped “about 15 or 20 times,” before stopping at the foot of a hill.