McALLEN — The bus rolled down the narrow highway as the sun shone through the white clouds that hung above the arid foothills of the Sierra Madre Oriental.

The tour guide, Mario Alberto Molina, stood in the aisle and told the travelers what lay ahead in Zacatecas — the destination that was still about four hours away.

Molina turned around and saw the big rig barreling in.

The bus driver swerved.

But it was too late.

"The impact was in front of us," Molina said, "and then it just went through the whole of the bus."

The blow jarred Molina toward the rear of the bus. The floor ripped open and his body fell beneath the tangled ruin.

Somehow, he survived.

"I just opened my eyes and when I saw light, I crawled out," he said Tuesday afternoon in a telephone interview from his Saltillo, Coah., Mexico, hospital room. "Even now, it's really hard to accept every single thing that happened."

Tourists' bodies scattered on the floor of what was left of the bus. Those still living moaned and cried out.

Gabriel Pérez Díaz, the bus' reserve driver, emerged from the wreck mostly unscathed, Molina said.

"We just tried to help people," said Molina, 20, a native of Guadalajara, Jal., Mexico.

But many aboard the bus were already gone.

Molina flagged down passing motorists for help. He tried to call police on his mobile phone but couldn't get a signal.

Mexican federal police officers arrived about 20 minutes later, Molina said. Another half-hour passed before a fleet of five ambulances and a medical transport helicopter reached the wreckage.

The bus driver, 42-year-old César García Huerta, died alongside nine of his passengers at the scene of the crash, which occurred about 2 p.m. Monday. Twenty-six people - many of whom were Winter Texans and area schoolteachers on spring break - were aboard the charter bus operated by Grupo Senda, a Monterrey-based transit company.

Emergency crews rushed the truck driver and the 15 surviving bus passengers - all injured - to hospitals in Saltillo, the Coahuila state capital about 35 miles away.

One traveler, Pharr resident Javier Lindel Garza, 62, succumbed to his injuries about an hour after he arrived at the hospital.

The crash killed seven U.S. citizens, three Canadians and one Mexican - the bus driver. Nine U.S. citizens, four Canadians and two Mexicans, including Molina, suffered injuries in the crash.

Two U.S. citizens remained hospitalized in critical condition Tuesday night. Canadian officials declined to release information about its injured citizens.

"Our heartfelt condolences go out to all those killed and injured," said Todd Huizinga, spokesman for the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey.

U.S. and Canadian consular officials continue to provide assistance to the families of the dead and injured.

Mexican authorities said Tuesday afternoon that Julio Cesar Rodriguez García, 29, had drank four or five beers and was intoxicated when his rig swerved onto the right shoulder of the two-lane Mexico Highway 54, overcompensated to the left and then collided with the bus, The Associated Press reported. No criminal charges had been filed as of late Tuesday.

Had the bus reached Zacatecas, the travelers would have spent two days there and another in Real de Catorce, a former silver mining town nestled in the mountains of San Luis Potosí state.

Tomas Gonzalez, who has owned McAllen-based travel agency Viva Mexico Tours for more than two decades, said this was the first crash he has had among the hundreds of tours he books annually.

Gonzalez rushed to Saltillo with his wife to be with his clients after the wreck. They returned Tuesday afternoon.

Tour leader Molina and Gonzalez praised the bus driver.

Had García not swerved, the collision would have been head-on - and likely would have claimed the lives of more passengers, Molina said.

"He died with his hands on the wheel," the tour guide said.

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Jared Taylor covers law enforcement and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4439.

>> Click here to view video from the Associated Press.

>> Click here for a list of passengers on the bus.

>> The Canadian Press reports that three of the dead have been confirmed as Canadians. (Click here to read the story.)