BASTROP — The driver of a cement truck that veered into oncoming traffic and hit a school bus carrying more than 40 pre-K students was arrested Friday and charged with criminally negligent homicide.
Jerry Hernandez, 42, was arrested at a residence in Bastrop County without incident, said Sgt. Deon Cockrell of the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Criminally negligent homicide is punishable by up to two years in jail and a fine of up to $10,000. Bastrop County online records do not show if Hernandez has an attorney.
The March 22 collision killed 5-year-old Ulises Rodriguez Montoya, who was on the bus, and Ryan Wallace, 33, who was driving another vehicle that was hit by the truck. According to a GoFundMe page, Wallace was “a doctoral candidate who was two weeks away from defending his dissertation at the University of Texas at Austin.”
The prekindergarten students were from Buda’s Tom Green Elementary School, which is in Hays Consolidated Independent School District. They were returning from a field trip to the zoo.
Video from a bus dashboard camera released by the Hays Consolidated Independent School district showed the truck suddenly veer across the double-yellow line on a rural highway. The bus moved to avoid a head-on collision before it was struck and rolled, crumpling the roof. Wallace was in a vehicle that was behind bus.
Four people were airlifted from the crash site in critical condition, and six more with serious injuries were taken by ambulance to hospitals. The bus was carrying 11 adults as well as the children.
The school district said the bus did not have seat belts.
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