Foothill team involved in bus accident

Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2001 | 11:15 a.m.

Foothill High School football coach Ray Fenton called an old friend Sunday after the bus carrying him, his wife and 40 teenagers was in an accident on the road home from the state semifinal in Reno.

Fenton told Pat Gammill, a fellow coach, how insignificant Saturday's last-minute 17-14 loss to McQueen in the Class 4A state semifinals was.

"I think that God broke our heart with that 57-yard field goal, but He put life in perspective on our way home," Fenton told Gammill as he recounted how the bus careened down an embankment at high speed after the driver passed out.

Except for a female member of the Foothill dance team suffering a bump on her head, there were no significant injuries to the 20 Falcon football players, 15 other dancers and others on the last of a four-bus caravan.

"It was just terrifying -- boys and girls screaming and yelling and bouncing around after we went down a six-foot embankment at about 65 mph," Fenton said of the 8 p.m. accident on a road out of Tonopah, 260 miles from Henderson, where the three-year-old school is located.

"We went through trees, bushes and barbed wire, and didn't slow down because the driver's foot apparently was on the accelerator. I don't know how we didn't overturn."

Fenton and the students were watching the movie, "A Gift of Love," the story of a football player who gave up his career to give a kidney to his ailing grandmother.

Suddenly, Fenton and his wife, Kerri, the Foothill dance team coach, heard a disturbing sound from the bus' two-way radio: "Jimmy, are you OK? Jimmy, are you OK? Jimmy, are you OK? ..."

"I saw the bus driver slumped over the wheel," Fenton said, noting it was too late for him to grab the wheel as the bus veered off the road and down the embankment.

The bus crossed a dirt cattle road and stopped.

"Everyone got out in an orderly fashion and we all stood in front of the headlights -- I was very proud of the way the students conducted themselves," Fenton said. "We've been an extremely close team, but this brought us even closer."

Fenton revived the bus driver, Jim Snyder, who told Fenton he apparently had gotten sick after eating what he thought was bad chicken.

Kerri called 911 on her cell phone, and Fenton radioed ahead to the other buses to come back and pick up the kids, who shared their experience with the others on the ride home.

The crashed bus, owned by VecTour, was still operable. An assistant coach drove it home.

It was the final chapter to what had been a fairy tale season for the 8-5 Falcons, who had gone 1-8 in 1999 and 5-4 last year. Next year's state championship game will be played in Las Vegas, possibly at Sam Boyd Stadium.

"If we win that one, we'll walk home along Boulder Highway in our own little parade," Fenton said.