Bus crash killed 3 area women

Passengers describe horror as bus rolls over

Paula Kemp

Charlotte Carros

Glenda Stone

Cindy Baggott knew in an instant that something had gone terribly wrong.

Passengers gasped as the casino bus began sliding sideways along the rain-slick Mississippi highway Sunday before it struck a median and rolled over. When it came to a stop, three Lowcountry women were dead and dozens of other passengers were injured.

"It was sheer terror," said Baggott, coach of the Bishop England High School volleyball team. "It was horrific."

Killed in the crash were Glenda Stone, 53, of Goose Creek; Charlotte Carros, 63, of Eutawville; and Paula Kemp, 53, of Mount Pleasant, Mississippi Highway Patrol Sgt. Leslie White said.

Baggott escaped the carnage with three broken ribs and a cut that required 30 stitches. Her father, George Furman Baggott, suffered three broken ribs and a broken collarbone.

"We were on the road for five minutes and then I heard the gasps," she said. "Once we hit the median, we started flipping."

The group was aboard a Harrah's bus headed to the Tunica, Miss., airport for a return flight to South Carolina when it turned sharply, skidded, flipped two or three times and landed on its side, Dan Lauzon, 61, of Beaufort, said.

"When I came to, I was covered in mud," Lauzon said. "There was a lot of blood all over." He was at the rear of the bus, which was the

most heavily damaged part of the vehicle.

At first it was quiet, he said, then people began moaning and crying out for help.

A passenger near the front of the bus turned off the motor. Lauzon and his wife, Patricia, crawled on hands and knees through a rear window blown out in the wreck, he said. He was having trouble breathing and walking. She was having chest pains. Lauzon and his wife both suffered bruised ribs. He said rescue teams from Mississippi, Arkansas and Tennessee responded.

The couple was back home Monday afternoon.

Kemp was a first-grade teacher at Mount Pleasant Academy. "She wanted a break before school started," said her husband, Hank Kemp. She had taught for 30 years, 19 of them at the academy.

"She was in the wrong part of the bus at the wrong time," Kemp said. She died at the scene from internal injuries.

Kathleen Kemp, 20, described her as "an amazing mother. She worked hard for her family." Paula Kemp also has a son, Andrew, 16.

Principal Jane Davis said in a statement issued by the Charleston County School District, "Her exuberant sense of humor brought much joy and laughter to her colleagues and friends."

Stone was a volunteer children's advocate and mother of a 19-year-old and a 30-year-old, and had gone on trips to casinos with her friend at least three or four times, said her husband, Calvin Stone.

"She was the love of my life and her children and her family — everyone who knew her," he said. "She was absolutely the love and the light and the glue of our family."

Those who knew Carros said her husband passed away two years ago and that she lived alone and traveled often.

Billy Berry said he purchased Bells Marina from Carros in December. "(She's) just an outgoing person who liked to work in the yard, landscape and things like that. Just a kind person, that's all," Berry said.

"She was a really nice person," said Eutawville Town Clerk Joanne Russell. Carros has a son in Atlanta, Russell said.

Harrah's corporate jet shuttled 23 survivors back to Charleston on Monday. About a dozen arrived at 1:40 p.m., and about 80 people arrived on a second plane at 6:30 p.m. They declined comment. A few disembarked gingerly and wore bandages. One man appeared to have his arm in a sling beneath his shirt. Six people remained hospitalized Monday, one in critical condition.

Those on the bus were among 131 people who flew to Mississippi on Friday night on a casino promotional trip. Two other buses were headed for the airport at the time of the crash. Those passengers flew back to South Carolina on Sunday afternoon, officials said.

The bus was the only vehicle involved in the accident, which was under investigation. It was raining at the time of the crash. The bus roof partially collapsed in the rollover.

Harrah's Entertainment operates 50 casinos worldwide, including three in Tunica: Harrah's Tunica, Horseshoe Casino and the Sheraton Casino & Hotel. Gambling junkets to the Tunica casinos are cheap and easy to come by for Charleston-area residents, with three-day packages starting as low as $279 a person.

For that price, you can get non-stop jet service from Charleston, plus three nights in a hotel room.

Thousands of potential air travelers are solicited to visit the north Mississippi casino district from all over the country. A recent excursion ad published in the Sunday Post and Courier that promoted an upcoming September trip to the Harrah's in Tunica listed a total price of $279.

At least two companies in the Charleston area are known to put such junkets together, but officials at both declined to comment Monday.

Reach Prentiss Findlay at 937-5711 or pfindlay@postandcourier.com and Jill Coley at 937-5719 or jcoley@postandcourier.com. Schuyler Kropf, Phili