BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) — Her daughter is usually calm and collected, but when she Facetimed the college softball player Wednesday evening, the mother said she could tell her daughter was shaken up.
On Wednesday, a bus carrying Murray State University’s softball team was involved in an accident en route to an NCAA regional tournament being held in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, according to a statement from the school’s athletic department. Three members of the team were hospitalized with non life-threatening injuries, the statement said.
The mother of one of the softball players said that the bus was attempting to pass a logging truck when it struck the vehicle. Logs from the truck pierced a bus window, she said.
Location data reviewed by CBS 42 shows that the accident occurred on Highway 13 near Bankston, Alabama, in Fayette County.
Her daughter called her just after the accident, which happened between 5 and 6 p.m. Wednesday, and said she wasn’t physically injured, but she told her mother that a few of her classmates were “pretty beaten up.”
The mother said that the students on the bus were told not to communicate with the press or share pictures from the scene, which is why CBS 42 has withheld the family’s names.
She said that it’s difficult as a mother of a college student being unable to get to her daughter at a moment’s notice.
“It’s very scary, especially being as far away as we are. When you have a child that graduated high school, they’re 18, you know, they’re quote ‘adults,’ but they’re not. They’re still your kids. And you want to jump in the car and drive to wherever they are. And it doesn’t always work that way.
She said some of the other team parents wouldn’t be able to get to their children until Thursday morning.
“And so, you know, as a parent, you freak out because you’re not there,” she said. “You’re not in control. You have no control of the situation.”
Attempts to reach Murray State Athletics and the bus company involved in the accident for more details were unsuccessful as of Wednesday night.
