GREELEY, Colo.—She’s driven past the cross on F Street many times. She had to do it. Her doctor told her, her friends told her and Christina Walls told herself.
It’s been almost five months since the crash, since the girl died, since the boy looked up at Walls’ face just before the terrible crash. Walls still remembers, still sees it all happening.
A wooden cross now marks the spot where the crash happened. Where Walls has driven many times. The cross is covered with Teddy bears and flowers and words of sympathy. This is where 15-year-old Karla Mendoza-Gonzalez died on Feb. 2. Her brother was driving the car that pulled out from a stop sign into the path of Walls’ school bus.
That collision will haunt many people for the rest of their lives.
Christina Walls is still struggling, although the way she acted after the crash could be considered heroic. She had 12 kids on the bus—first graders through ninth graders—when the vehicles collided; Walls was injured. Her hand and neck still give her severe pain five months later.
But she got the kids off the bus, moved them to an area where they couldn’t see the wreckage or the injured teens and got medical attention for her passengers.
After she was sure everyone else was safe, Walls still refused to take an ambulance to the hospital. “The kids didn’t need to see me in the ambulance,” Walls says today. “My superintendent took me to the hospital.”
It was at the hospital, away from the kids, that she learned a girl died in the crash and Walls collapsed. She went into shock and had convulsions.
But Walls fought back. They wouldn’t let her drive for a while because of her injuries, but she went back to the scene just a few days later. She saw the debris still at the scene, smelled the gasoline again and saw the face.
It is Francisco Mendoza-Gonzalez’s face she saw that day, driving the car, looking at her just before the 10-ton bus hit the one-ton car. He was 16 years old and didn’t have a driver’s license.
Since the crash, Walls has been in the care of several doctors for her injuries. She has a therapist who has helped her with the difficult memories, adjusting to what happened that day on her school route.
She’s had notes and calls and been told of prayers from her kids who want her back, want her driving their bus again. She’s grateful for that.
Two weeks ago, Francisco Mendoza-Gonzalez pleaded guilty to careless driving resulting in death—a misdemeanor—and received a year’s probation. He also must perform 40 hours of community service and take safe driving classes.
Walls, who still suffers serious pain in her shoulder and neck from nerve damage, believes the sentence for the teenage driver should have been stronger. “I know he and his family suffered a terrible tragedy,” Walls says. “They lost a sister, a daughter. It was terrible.
“But he shouldn’t have been driving. His parents shouldn’t have allowed him to drive. Now they have that for the rest of their lives.”
The Mendoza-Gonzalez family was not available for comment. Their attorney, Dan Trevino of Greeley, said at the court hearing for Francisco: “This is a tragedy the family has to deal with for a lifetime. This plea agreement will help them to recover.”
She doesn’t believe the boy should go to jail. “But he needs to know how it affected others … the kids on the bus? Does he know Ramone couldn’t go to wrestling after that? Does he know that Brenna was so happy to be celebrating 100 days of school that day, and now she has to remember what happened? Does he know my son was on another bus and heard my voice on the bus radio and thought I’d been killed?”
And Walls is climbing out now. She drove another bus route at the end of the school year, and she’s promised herself that this fall she’ll be driving the same bus, with some of the same kids, along the same route in north Greeley on F Street.
Where the cross still stands, covered with flowers and Teddy bears.
