BILLINGS— An MSU Billings cross country runner detailed Tuesday the chaotic scene following a team bus crash over the weekend that sent six athletes to the hospital in Washington state.
“The van— it was just gone. It was just terrible, and we get over here it's just this chaotic situation,” Will Hyatt, who was in a separate vehicle, said in an interview with MTN News.
The team was traveling in four separate vehicles to the Whitman Open, a meet in Walla Walla, Wash.
Watch to see how one teammate is responding in aftermath of vehicle accident:
According to Hyatt, the drivers consisted of two coaches and two students. One of the cars, which Hyatt’s 21-year-old female teammate, Cecily Eagleton, was driving, fell behind and veered off the road.
Two of the injured were flown by life-flight helicopter to hospitals in Washington and Idaho. All hospitalized athletes have returned home, except for one athlete who remains in a Spokane hospital.
According to Hyatt, due to funding allocations, students driving school vehicles with passengers happens often.
“This is a normal occurrence. A lot of times student athletes, the older student athletes like myself, we're 21 or older, will drive those vehicles, so it was just, you know, perfectly normal protocol,” he said.
Hyatt is grateful there were no fatalities, but he expressed concern over the response from Washington State Patrol.
“Speculation was brought into by the Washington State Patrol that our driver was speeding. That is not the case. Every single person in that vehicle can attest that that our driver was going the speed limit,” said Hyatt.
According to the state patrol crash report from Washington State Patrol Trooper Benjamin Capuli, Eagleton was distracted while driving, went off the roadway and hit a driveway near Dusty, Wash., on state Highway 127. The report, obtained MTN News, does not mention how fast the vehicle was traveling.
Eagleton was cited for second-degree negligent driving.
Watch previous Q2 coverage:
Hyatt also expressed frustration over the care given to the athletes hospitalized.
“They just did a very poor job of checking up on everyone's injuries. (The injured athletes) had to get re-evaluations over it because, I mean, clearly the care that they were given in the hospital was not enough and as someone who was there in the moment of watching the entire thing, I think that a lot of things could have been done better,” said Hyatt.
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The team did not compete in the Whitman Open after the accident.
The runners are still training and planning on competing in the invitational meet in Billings on Friday, but at their own discretion.
“We're all just super beat up and just exhausted out of it, but we'll probably try and get out there, just, you know, race through, work through this adversity, and I mean, at the end of the day, this entire situation is going to make us all stronger and it shows how well we can come together as a team and as a community,” said Hyatt.
The university is providing physical and mental care to the athletes as a response.
“The key for us right now is helping the students on their recovery both physically and emotionally so we've got systems in place to help students as they need it,” said MSUB Communications Director Dan Carter.
The 21-year-old athlete driving the van of five other athletes falls within Montana University System vehicle policy and procedures.
A student must be at least 21 years old and have “significant driving experience operating large vehicles” to drive a school vehicle with more than seven occupants. The driver of this vehicle had been driving a vehicle of six occupants.
As far as Carter knows, there are no plans to change that policy.
“I think it's too early to know whether any changes are going to be made because of this. Again, we evaluate policies, procedures all the time and then it will all depend on what happens later,” said Carter.
