Enormously sad about Marian pilgrim bus crash

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5931668.html

SHERMAN — At least 15 Houston residents were killed and dozens others injured early Friday when the bus taking them to a religious festival in Missouri smashed into a bus guardrail on U.S. 75 just north of Dallas.

The charter bus, which was operating illegally, was carrying 55 members of Vietnamese Martyrs Catholic Church in southeast Houston and Our Lady of Lavang Church in northwest Harris County when it crashed about 12:45 a.m..

Authorities said the bus, bound for the annual Marian Days festival at Carthage, Mo., skidded along the guardrail across a creek, then slid down a 12-foot embankment.

An early report said the driver may have lost control of the vehicle when a tire blew out, but Sherman police said it is too early to conclude whether that caused the accident. Federal transportation authorities have begun an investigation at the crash site.

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"It was terribly chaotic to have that many injured and dead at one scene,'' said Lt. Bob Fair of the Sherman Police Department.

Rescuers were further hampered as many of the passengers spoke only Vietnamese, he said. They were assisted by three Vietnamese-speaking priests who were traveling in a vehicle and came upon the scene.

All survivors were rushed to hospitals, including facilities in Sherman, Dallas, Oklahoma and other areas, he said. Most traveled by ambulance, the most serious by helicopter.
Identifying the dead has proved challenging as many apparently didn't have identification in their pockets.

The Rev. Joseph Vu, who is not related to Frank Vu, quietly walked along the wreckage from the accident that claimed the lives of several members of his congregation.

"We don't blame anybody," he said. "It happened because of the condition of the bus or the tire or the road, just like the Apollo or Challenger.

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The bus left Houston on Thursday night after boarding parishioners from the Vietnamese Martyrs Church, 10610 Kingspoint, and Our Lady of Lavang Church, 12320 Old Foltin Road.

The Rev. Dominic Trinh, pastor of Our Lady of Lavang, said he learned about the crash in a 3 a.m. telephone call. He was told at least three of his church members had died.

The Rev. Thamh Vu, pastor of Vietnamese Martyrs Church, was en route to Sherman with Pham Nguyen, a church deacon, a church spokesman said.

"They are my friends," Vu said by phone. "We are praying for the healing."

"We offer them to God," he continued.

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Before celebrating Mass at Vietnamese Martyrs Catholic Church, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo spoke to reporters about how local churches are helping friends and parishioners who knew those who died or were injured in the crash.

"It's incomprehensible,'' DiNardo said about the accident, "but I always think of when our Christ was dying on the cross, he didn't say a lot. But what he taught is to have a great trust in the Lord even when things don't make sense.''

He said he would tell parishioners at the 6:30 evening Mass that such a tragedy reinforces the transience of life and the need to be prepared for death.

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The Marian Days festival, honoring the Virgin Mary, patron saint of refugees, typically draws about 50,000 Vietnamese-American worshipers to the tiny Ozark town.

The religious observance and festival grew out of the arrival of 185 Vietnamese refugees, who were taken to Fort Chaffee, Ark., after the fall of Saigon.

They were allowed the use of a vacant seminary at Carthage, which grew into the site of a sizable Vietnamese congregation.