14 DAY TRIAL // Eight people have been killed and 14 others have been injured when a church bus slammed into a tractor trailer and a third car on Interstate 40 on Wednesday.
The collision took place near Dandridge, between mile markers 422 and 424, as the bus was nearing the Interstate 81 split.
The Blount County Daily Times reported that the bus was transporting seniors from Front Street Baptist Church in Statesville, North Carolina.
A spokesperson added that they were returning from a Christian festival in Gatlinburg, the 17th annual Fall Jubilee.
Knox News relays the festival's description as offering “singing, laughing and preaching” for elderly visitors.
Tennessee Department of Safety spokeswoman, Dalya Qualls, informed that the crash occurred at around 2 p.m.
“[The bus] traveled across the median and struck a tractor-trailer and passenger car that were traveling westbound.
“The tractor-trailer caught fire and the bus overturned. [...] There are multiple fatalities and injuries at this time,” Qualls says.
The Jefferson and Sevier County fire department worked together to contain the flames following the crash and pull out survivors.
Some victims were airlifted with medical helicopters provided by Johnson City and the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville. Witnesses also took part in the extrication of the passengers.
“When we got there we saw the two vehicles, the truck and we didn’t know what the other vehicle was at the time, and we saw bodies all over the ground and some people walking around, bloody.
“One woman was obviously dead, and I pulled her away from the fire, and I pulled another live woman,” says Fred Lucas, a pathologist for the University of Cincinnati Medical Center in Ohio.
Lucas and his wife also provided medical assistance to a man with head injuries and a woman with a broken arm. He recalls seeing a body in the woods after the impact.