5-year-old on field trip dies in rollover bus crash, Texas officials say. ‘Loving child’
A cement truck struck a school bus carrying 44 students and 11 staff on their way back from the zoo, resulting in the death of a 5-year-old student, Texas officials said.
The victim has been identified as Ulises Rodriguez Montoya, a preschool student at Tom Green Elementary School, according to a March 25 news release from the Hays Consolidated Independent School District.
Montoya “loved his family, dinosaurs, the color green, and going to school,” district officials said.
“He could almost completely spell the word dinosaur, which demonstrates how smart he was,” said Naira (Dina) Solís Shears, Montoya’s preschool teacher. “He always had a dinosaur drawn on all of the assignments he turned in.”
“He liked to tell stories and shared many with his friends and family,” Shears said. “Above all — he was a loving child.”
The school bus, returning from Bastrop Zoo on March 22, was struck head-on by a cement truck that veered into its lane on State Highway 21, causing the bus to roll over, according to school officials and authorities with the Texas Department of Public Safety.
The district said the bus involved in the accident — a 2011 model — was not equipped with seat belts.
As of March 24, three staff members and two students remained in the hospital, according to Tom Green Elementary School Principal Jennifer Hanna.
The driver of a vehicle behind the school bus — identified by the Austin American-Statesman as 33-year-old Ryan Wallace of Bastrop — also died in the accident.
No charges have been filed against the driver of the cement truck, and so far no explanation of why the driver veered out of their lane has been released.
The investigation is ongoing, officials say.
Bastrop is about a 30-mile-drive southeast from Austin.
This story was originally published March 25, 2024 at 3:41 PM with the headline "5-year-old on field trip dies in rollover bus crash, Texas officials say. ‘Loving child’."
