10 dead, 3 critical after Texas prison bus hits train

A prison bus skidded off an icy Texas highway and collided with a passing freight train Wednesday, killing eight inmates and two corrections officers, including the bus driver, authorities said

The dead included eight prisoners and two correctional officers, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice said in a statement.

Five people were injured, three of them critically. The National Transportation Safety Board said it was sending a team of inspectors to the scene.

The prisoners did not have seat belts and were handcuffed together in pairs, officials said. Some of them were ejected from the bus after it struck the train, said Trooper Elizabeth Barney of the Texas Department of Public Safety.

"It's as bad as you can imagine," Odessa Fire and Rescue Battalion Chief Kavin Tinney told the Odessa American. "In 32 years it's as bad as anything I've seen."

Jason Clark, a Department of Criminal Justice spokesman, said the bus had been placed in service only this past summer. It was taking inmates from a prison in Abilene to a prison in El Paso.

A prison system statement identified the dead as correctional officers Christopher Davis, 53, and Eligio Garcia, 45; and inmates Byron Wilson, 34; Tyler Townsend, 29; Jesus Reyna, 44; Kaleb Wise, 22; Adolfo Ruiz, 32; Michael Sewart, 25; Angel Vasquez, 31; and Jeremiah Rodriguez, 35.

Correctional officer Jason Self, 38, and inmates Terry Johnson, 22, and Damien Rodriguez, 22, were hospitalized in critical condition, the prison system said. Inmates Remigio Pineda, 34, and Hector Rivera, 37, were in serious condition.

The accident occurred on an icy stretch of Interstate 20 near Penwell, west of Odessa, Wednesday morning, said Ector County Sheriff Mark Donaldson.

The Union Pacific freight train with four locomotives and 58 cars came to a stop. Union Pacific spokesman Jeff DeGraff said none of the train's crew was injured, according to the Odessa-American.

Contributing: William M. Welch in Los Angeles; Associated Press