Hays CISD releases video from deadly bus crash

Hays CISD released the video of the crash between a concrete truck and a school bus that left two dead and several injured on Friday, March 22.

BUDA, Texas (KXAN) – Hays Consolidated Independent School District released the video of the crash between a concrete truck and a school bus that left two dead and several injured on Friday, March 22.

The crash occurred between a Hays CISD bus and a concrete truck. It resulted in two deaths — five-year-old Ulises Rodriguez Montoya, who was on the bus, and 33-year-old Ryan Wallace, a doctoral candidate at the School of Journalism and Media at the University of Texas at Austin, who was traveling in a vehicle behind the bus. 

The video shows the bus traveling westbound on SH 21, returning from a field trip to the Bastrop Zoo. Just before 2 p.m., a truck on the same highway traveling east, veers into the bus' lane, hitting it, and causing the bus to roll.

This dash camera video shows the collision from the bus driver's viewpoint. KXAN has removed the audio.

KXAN has learned the company operating the concrete pump truck that collided with the school bus was operated by a small trucking company called FJM Concrete Pumping LLC. The company is based in Smithville and runs just one truck, which is authorized for intrastate, non-hazardous material transport, according to Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration records.

Federal records show no history of crashes, inspections, or violations for the company. The company was formed in May 2022 by Francisco Martinez Jr.

Parents previously told KXAN that this was many of the student's first field trip.

“It’s just been an emotional wreck,” Hector Campos, whose daughter was on the bus, told KXAN. “It’s just very sad. We’re trying to hold it together. But you know, we’re being as positive as we can.”