COLUMBIA, S.C. — The bus driver, two football players, and a 10-year-old child were identified as the four victims killed after a bus carrying a South Carolina junior college football team to its first game ever crashed on a North Carolina highway, State Police said.
The front left tire on the bus blew out around 2:30 p.m. Saturday, sending it into a guardrail, then scraping the side of a concrete bridge column on a highway near Hamlet, N.C., Highway Patrol Lieutenant Jeff Gordon said.
The National Transportation Safety Board is sending two investigators to the scene of the crash to investigate the tires on the bus, agency spokesman Christopher O’Neil said, adding the board hasn’t decided whether it will do a full investigation of the wreck.
The driver of the bus, Brian Kirkpatrick, 43, of Chester was killed as were Darice Hicks, 10, of Rock Hill; Devonte Gibson, 21, of Rock Hill; and Tito Hamilton, 19, of Pahokee, Fla. Two of the dead were ejected from the bus and two were rescued from inside, but died at the hospital, Gordon said.
The wreck involved the football team from Ramah Jucco Academy traveling to Raeford, N.C., to play University of God’s Chosen. Troopers say most of the players on the team, including Gibson and Hamilton, came from Clinton College in Rock Hill.
The Ramah Academy team held open tryouts around Rock Hill in the spring and summer.
Coach Derrick Crawford said on his Facebook page this was Ramah Academy’s first game ever and invited fans to come out and wish the team luck before they left Saturday morning.
Associated Press