Missy Headrick of Sumrall is not immune to the wrecks in front of her house in a curved stretch of U.S. Hwy. 589 inside the city limits.
Some she attributes to speed and the curved section of road, while others are just freak accidents.
Headrick was a witness to another of those freak accidents on Monday morning between a Lamar County school bus and a vehicle shortly after 8 a.m. The cause of that accident remains under investigation.
A bus carrying five Purvis High School students to culinary classes at Sumrall High School was involved in a crash with an automobile, which sent the bus driver and one student to the hospital.
Lamar County School District Superintendent Tess Smith said Tuesday that the driver of the bus was fine as was the driver of the car.
“This morning I spoke to the mother of the student who was transported,” said Smith. “She is bruised and very sore and has some follow-up appointments. All other students were in class this morning when I checked on them.”
Headrick has lived in the home, which has pasture land and a fence along the curved stretch of the highway, for three years. In just the last several weeks and months, she has witnessed a number of accidents at that location. She wonders how many more speed-related accidents she’s going to witness before something is done about the speed limit on this stretch of road.
“What’s it going to take?” she asked.
Headrick said she has talked about the speed limit with a number of officials, as well as Supervisor Dale Lucus, who assured her something would be done.
Headrick said she was sitting on the porch and saw the Monday morning accident. “Understand we had a wreck last week in front of the house, and a month ago, a female cop got hit. We’re just accustomed to wrecks here,” she said.
On Monday she recalls a loud explosion. “I initially thought it might be the bus’s tire because it was so incredibly loud. As soon as I heard the explosion I looked up. From where I was sitting when I looked up, both of the vehicles were already fishtailing, and because they were both fishtailing the bus came over and just barely clipped the front of the driver’s side. They impacted and spun towards each othe before sliding off the road.”
By this time, Headrick said she was already running toward the scene. When she reached the corner post of her pasture fence, that’s when the bus leaned over and hit the light pole, laying on top of the car. “The light pole is what kept it (the bus) from rolling,” she said.
Headrick said after the January snowstorm,Mississippi Power came out and resecured the lightpole, which had a lean to it at the time.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that that lightpole would have come down if it hadn’t been secured,” Headrick said.
When Headrick reached the car, the driver of was already out of the car. “It wasn’t five seconds and she’d already crawled across the driver’s side and was out of the car.”
She said sh reached the leaning bus, where the bus driver was leaning against the doors.
Headrick praised the bus driver.
“That bus driver, she was amazing,” she said. “The first thing she did was get on her radio. I didn’t know there were students on the bus until I looked and they were laying everywhere. But that bus driver stayed on that bus until they got every kid off that bus. And then she let us take her out of the bus. It was unreal.”
Smith said bus drivers follow established protocol in situations such as this.
“We strive to train for all situations,” she said. “Safety of driver and students is the priority. After a situation occurs, the driver is to move students to a safe area. In this case, numerous people were on the scene immediately offering assistance. We are very thankful for those who provided aide.”
Smith said bus driver training is part of the district’s hiring process, as is continuing training.
The buses are not equipped with seatbelts for the students.
Headrick noted that the Sumrall city limits starts one mile to the south and then the ballparks are to the north.
“If you look going north toward the ballpark, the speed limit it 35, 45, 55, 45, 55 in a one-half mile range,” she said. “It’s ridiculous and they can’t have radar in Sumrall (because the census lists their population below 2,000). “We’ve lived here three years and I’ve been trying to get them to do another census for our town, because I know we’re over 2,000 now. I’ve offered to buy radar, but they can’t have it. I’ve called the state troopers, about 6 months ago, and asked if they could come and run radar because somebody is going to get killed out here and they said, their exact words, ‘No ma’am, we can’t and won’t come out there in the city limits.’”
She’s talked to supervisor Dale Lucus about the same time. “I asked if we couldn’t please do something about the speed limit?” she said. “If we can’t do anything about radar, can we at least change the speed limit to 35? He said, ‘Oh yes, ma’am I promise you.’ I have it recorded, but nothing has been done and I’ve given them six months to address it.”
According to Lamar County Road Manager Tommy Jones, the Mississippi Department of Transportation is the one who sets speed limits on state roads.
“I’m tired of this,” Headrick said. “Somebody is going to die. The firemen just died just down the road. How many more people have to die before they will do something?”
While another census is scheduled for the state in 2020, Headrick said she really doesn’t want to have to wait two years or more before something can get done.
Headrick said last week, while sitting on her car, she observe a car came coming around the curve and something underneath, an axle or something broke, and the car started skidding and ran off in the ditch at Cold Springs Church across the street.
Headrick leaves next week for medical school in Tennessee, so she won’t be as attuned to the regular occurrence of accidents along this stretch of roadway. She does know that something has got to be done about the speed.
