Local News

COTTONWOOD, Minn. (AP) ― Bus driver Dennis Devereaux had already made his regular stops at a daycare and at the trailer court on Tuesday. He was taking little Bryce to his grandparents' house when a van came at him, and didn't seem to be stopping.

"All of a sudden the next thing I knew, we were on our side and we came to a stop and I had a trombone and a kid laying on top of me ..." Devereaux told police. He unbuckled his seat belt and went to the back of the bus.

That's when he saw how bad it was.

Kids were screaming. Some students were dazed, piled up on each other. Oil was leaking everywhere -- Devereaux worried about an explosion. The front end of someone's truck was inside the bus. Hunter and Emilee were pinched between seats. Cody didn't look so good.

"It was awful," he told police.

Devereaux, 53, recalled the crash in an interview with State Trooper Dana Larsen. The interview was included in court documents filed Friday in Lyon County as the van's driver was charged with four counts of criminal vehicular homicide and two lesser charges.

The crash along Highway 23 near Cottonwood killed brothers Jesse Javens, 13, and Hunter Javens, 9, of Cottonwood; Emilee Olson, 9, also of Cottonwood; and Reed Stevens, 12, of Marshall.

They were among the 28 students on the bus at the time -- students that Devereaux knew by name after driving the same route for 2 1/2 years. In the police interview, Devereaux recalled where nearly every student was sitting -- noting that he keeps the little ones toward the front, older kids in back.

"He has a very close relationship with all those students," said Devereaux's wife, Kathy. "They get ready for school and they get on the bus and they see Dennis in the morning. After school, he's there waiting for them."

On the day of the crash, Dennis Devereaux told police he saw the van, but didn't have time to brake or accelerate to get out of its way. He thought the van might miss the bus, but then things seemed to move in slow motion.

"We were up and on our side and skidding. I was hanging on and we came to a stop and that's all," he told police.

Devereaux tried to radio for help, but the radio didn't seem to work. He told police how he "punched open the hatch" and started handing kids out the window to passers-by.

He recalled other horrors: "I tried to get these kids that were in front and then when I got to where the wheel well was then I could see Hunter and Emilee were pinched in between seats ... and it just seemed like nobody was coming to help fast enough."

He saw four or five kids in the back, piled together.

"I went back there and I saw Matt and he looked okay and Cody looked okay and I said it's gonna be okay. We're gonna get help," he said, according to the transcript. But then he added "Cody just didn't look good." The child, Cody Sleiter, survived.

Devereaux told police he didn't know a pickup truck was under the bus until he was standing on its radiator.

At one point, he recalled, he heard an emergency responder say: we can't do anything for these kids anymore.

"That's not fun," he told Trooper Larsen.

In the interview, Devereaux's connection to the kids is clear. His own daughter rides the bus, but not in the afternoons, he said. He remembered that Carson was behind him on that day, and had earlier shown Devereaux some stats from a Sports Illustrated publication for kids. He remembered Michale wasn't on the bus because of a math league event after school.

"I know all the kids. I know all their parents," he said.

Devereaux's wife said her husband is doing well, and is getting lots of support. He was not physically injured in the crash.

"The parents put a lot of trust in bus drivers that they will transport (their kids) to school safely and return them to their homes safely at night," she said, adding that her husband was dealing with the fact that he couldn't bring four of his riders home.

"I just wish I wouldn't a, wouldn't a been there," he told Larsen, in reference to being at the intersection when the van struck the bus.

"You can't blame yourself," Larsen said.

"Well. I know, but it's hard," he said.

Dennis Devereaux wasn't doing any media interviews. But since Lakeview School resumed classes after the crash, he has been riding the bus right along with the kids.

"He did not want the children to get on the bus without that friendly face that they see every morning," Kathy Devereaux said. "He wanted to be an example, to show them that the bus is still safe."

On Friday afternoon, three days after the crash, he got back behind the wheel of a school bus and drove his kids home once again.

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