One year after horrific bus crash, victims struggle to heal

DONNA — Maggie Christy couldn’t coax her husband to the back of the bus.

Always a stubborn man, Ron insisted on staying near the front — in the seats they had chosen at the beginning of the trip. Maggie left him there as she moved to the rear of the bus for a better view of the Joshua trees that dot the arid landscape on the mountain-lined route to Zacatecas.

The split would decide their fates.

“I just remember that loud bang,” said Maggie Christy, 69. “I must have been knocked out, because I didn’t see the bodies flying.”

On March 16, 2009, the Christys and 24 others left on a chartered bus to Zacatecas — a colonial city about 360 miles southwest of McAllen. About 35 miles south of Saltillo, Coah., a drunken driver at the wheel of a tractor-trailer crossed the center of Mexico Highway 54 and smashed into the bus head-on.

The impact tore the bus in half lengthwise, tossing passengers from their seats and leaving no one aboard unscathed.

Ron Christy died amid the tangled wreckage that day a year ago. Ten others also lost their lives.

Maggie’s liver and spleen were lacerated. But she was among the 15 survivors.

“God put me back there for a reason,” said Christy, a native of West Liberty, Iowa, who winters at Palm Shadows RV Park in Donna.

Wounds — physical and emotional — remain unhealed for many of those aboard the tour bus that left McAllen and was destined for colonial cities in the mountains of northern Mexico.

The survivors continue to pursue their own resolution after the crash.

Tour guide Mario Alberto Molina stood in the aisle of the tour bus as it barreled down the two-lane highway. The day after the wreck, Molina said he had seen the semitrailer closing in on the bus just before impact.

Molina escaped the collision with scrapes and bruises. His tour season ended after the crash, giving him time to reflect on the tragedy. In the days after the collision, he decided to return to his post.

“I was sort of scared to come back, but I still came back,” the 21-year-old said. “It was a bit hard but I set up my mind to do it.”

Molina spoke via cell phone Friday from a train headed through Copper Canyon, a popular tourist destination in Chihuahua state. The tour guide said the crash became something of a legend among other bus drivers, guides and travelers. Many have asked him about it — some without even knowing he was aboard the bus that day.

“I try to leave them thinking that there was nothing to blame — the country or my driver or the other driver — just an accident on the road,” Molina said.

Just this month, Molina faced the tractor-trailer’s driver, Cesar Rodriguez García, 30, who was arrested after the crash on drunken driving charges and was later convicted. He faces sentencing next month.

“I didn’t get the chance to talk to him,” Molina said. “No hard feelings. I just realize that he is a victim — as we all are — of circumstances.

“I cannot blame a human for doing a human mistake.”

Tomás González, who owns and operates Viva Mexico Tours, the company that chartered the bus from McAllen, said he had little to express about the crash — just that he does not “even want to remember that.”

His company continues to offer tours, and none have run into any problems since then, he said. Business has been slower this season — not because of the crash, but because of the growing fear of drug violence across northern Mexico since the Nuevo Progreso shootout in December 2009.

“After that, people just got more leery, more leery, and it was bad,” he said.

Still, González lamented the loss of the bus driver, 42-year-old César García Huerta, with whom he had worked for more than 15 years.

“He was one of the best drivers that I had known,” González said. “A gentleman with the bus and the customers.”

Grupo Senda, the company that owned and operated the tour bus, pledged to pay the hospital bills in Mexico for the crash victims. The company lived up to its word — eventually — when the bills were paid by late summer, Christy said.

“They finally came through with it, but they did drag their feet a lot,” she said.

Representatives from Grupo Senda did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

At least three lawsuits remain pending against Viva Mexico Tours and Grupo Senda. None of the cases has been settled or has gone to trial.

Other victims struggle to fully recover — if they ever will.

Christy recalled the help she received from Georgina Robles Gourley — a Brownsville resident who was aboard the bus with her husband, Royce.

Georgina helped Christy communicate in Spanish with the nurses and aides from her Saltillo hospital room, where she stayed for almost a week after the crash.

“I remember she was so bruised up,” Christy said. “She wasn’t concerned about herself. She was concerned about her husband.”

That has not changed in the past year.

When contacted at her home Friday, Georgina said she and her husband “have been going through a lot.”

Royce suffered brain injuries in the collision and requires regular medical care from a nurse who visits their Brownsville home. After returning to the Rio Grande Valley, a series of visits at hospitals and rehabilitation centers in Cameron County “really messed him up.”

Georgina said she questions whether her 71-year-old husband, who was an instructor at the University of Texas-Brownsville, will ever heal.

“It’s been horrible,” she said. “And for me, I’m the only one who can take care of him. It’s very, very difficult for me.”

Christy said she did not fully realize she had lost her husband of 26 years until she went back to Iowa later that spring. As she re-opened her house with her adult children and stepchildren, she realized Ron did many of the tasks she had never done before.

Since then, Christy said, family, friends and her faith have helped her with the healing process — though she doesn’t always tell people how tough it has been.

Christy’s children and stepchildren had a funeral for Ron while she was still recovering from her injuries in Texas. She brought his ashes back to Iowa and they buried his remains over Father’s Day weekend.

“Ron was one of those people who always wanted to be a little early,” Christy said. “And he didn’t even make it to his own funeral. I’m not going to let him forget it.”

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