Driver Slams Into Bus Carrying Covington Kids Back From March for Life — 1 Dead, Several Injured

A bus carrying students from Covington Catholic High School was involved in a fatal accident following Friday’s March for Life rally in Washington, D.C.

The head-on collision occurred on the AA Highway in northern Kentucky around 7:20 a.m. Saturday morning, Campbell County police said. The driver of the other vehicle, whose name has not been released, was pronounced dead at the scene.

According to Fox 19 Cincinnati, the charter bus driver was injured and went to the hospital along with another person on-board. Additional passengers, including two parents who were chaperoning the trip, suffered mild injuries.

“This morning, a bus carrying students and chaperones home from the March for Life in Washington, DC was involved in an accident,” Covington Diocese spokeswoman Laura Keene said in a statement. “EMT personnel and the Campbell County police have been at the scene and are handling the matter. Please join us in praying for everyone involved in this accident.”

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The bus was one of four that Covington Catholic chartered to take some 200 students to and from the anti-abortion rally, Fox 19 reported. They were traveling northbound in a caravan when the vehicle approached traveling southbound on the wrong side of the highway.

Due to damage to the passenger side of the bus, the passengers exited through emergency windows.

Ricky Lynn told WLWT 5 that the vehicle almost slammed into him as he was taking a friend to the airport.

“The weather’s bad. It’s one of those things we try not to get ourselves into,” he said. “I saw a car come across the median and head toward me. I was able to get out of the way.”

The station reported that a priest who was on one of the Covington Catholic buses administered last rites to the person who was killed.

Before the Covington Catholic bus crash

Last year, a group of students from Covington Catholic attending the March for Life drew national attention for a confrontation with a Native American activist.

A misleading video of the incident quickly went viral, and major news outlets helped perpetuate a false narrative that cast the students as aggressors and cast one of them, Nick Sandmann, a poster boy for bigotry in President Donald Trump’s America.

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Additional videos and accounts soon made clear that Phillips had initiated the standoff and later misrepresented what happened. Some journalists, commentators and celebrities responded to updated evidence by amending their views, and in some cases even apologizing. But others doubled down.

An independent investigation undertaken by the Catholic Diocese of Covington eventually cleared the boys of any wrongdoing.

Sandmann, who returned for this year’s rally, earlier this month settled a lawsuit against CNN for its coverage of the event.

I will never pass on an opportunity to March for Life! pic.twitter.com/iU0ohmdcTJ

— Nicholas Sandmann (@N1ckSandmann) January 24, 2020

His lawsuits against the Washington Post and NBC Universal are still pending. Sandmann’s attorneys have said they also intend to sue Gannett, the parent company which owns USA Today and several local newspapers.

It was not immediately clear if Sandmann was traveling on the buses during Friday’s collision.

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Andrew Tobin is Pluralist’s Editor-in-chief.

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