Members of the Bluffton University baseball team from Ohio were mostly asleep on a grinding all-night bus ride to Florida, still a couple hours away from a breakfast stop, when their world turned upside down.

"I woke up as soon as the bus hit the overpass wall," A.J. Ramthun said. "That's when I looked up. And the bus landed on the left side, which is the side I was sitting on. I just looked out and saw the road coming up after me, and that's all."

Allan Detrich/The (Toledo, Ohio) Blade (ENLARGE)

At Bluffton University in Ohio on Friday, shocked students watch a televised news conference about the tragedy that had befallen their baseball team in Atlanta. The team from Bluffton, a small Mennonite institution, was traveling to a tournament in Florida.

Bita Honarvar/Staff (ENLARGE)

Curt Schroeder, a sophomore catcher, was asleep when the bus crashed. He said he 'figured we were sliding down a hill or something.'

(ENLARGE)

Jerome Niemeyer of Ohio, who was at the wheel, and his wife, Jean, both died.

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In those fleeting moments, six people died. The university identified the victims as sophomores David Betts and Tyler Williams, freshmen Scott Harmon and Cody Holp, bus driver Jerome Niemeyer and his wife, Jean, all from Ohio.

The 29 other passengers were taken to Grady Memorial Hospital, Piedmont Hospital and Atlanta Medical Center. Two were in critical condition, one was serious and 16 others were in good to fair condition, hospital officials said Friday. The most critically injured tended to be near the front of the bus. Injuries included bruised lungs, a spleen that had to be removed and a blood clot on one student's brain that led to emergency neurosurgery.

The highway just north of downtown was closed for five hours during the morning commute and reopened in the late morning.

Federal, state and county officials are investigating the crash of the tour bus that carried the Bluffton Beavers to a spring break tournament in Florida.

The southbound bus was traveling in the HOV lane, the far left lane of I-75, and continued up a left-hand off-ramp to Northside Drive. Survivors told investigators the bus was at "highway speed" as it crossed several lanes of traffic and crashed over a short concrete wall and through a fence before falling back onto the southbound lanes of the interstate.

There were no skid marks, indicating the driver either did not attempt to stop or there was a mechanical failure, police said.

Atlanta police Maj. Calvin Moss said the driver was "fresh," having taken the wheel about 4:30 a.m., an hour before the crash. There was no indication drugs or alcohol caused the crash, police said.

An electronic device on the bus will be used to determine more about the accident, said an official with the National Transportation Safety Board, which has 11 investigators in town.

At a Friday night news conference, they said they would look at all factors, including the configuration of the exit ramp and signage leading up to it.

Ramthun, an infielder from Springfield, Ohio, said Curt Schroeder, a sophomore catcher on the "tightly knit" team, tapped him on the head "telling me we needed to get out because there was gas all over the place," the bruised Ramthun told a group of reporters outside Grady.

"I heard some guys crying, 'I'm stuck, I'm stuck.' I walked by Coach Grandey, who is now in stable condition, but at that time he was so bad off. And I tried to help him up and that's when I realized my shoulder was hurt.

"It was just chaos in my mind."

Bluffton Coach James Grandey, 29, was listed in serious condition at Piedmont Hospital but is expected to improve.

Ramthun looked around for his brother, Mike, a sophomore, but could not find him. His brother was trapped under the bus and had an injured hip.

"He might not recover," Ramthun said, saying he was already feeling guilty because he suffered relatively minor injuries — a broken collarbone and facial cuts and bruises. "And I don't know how to come up to some of these guys and say I'm sorry while I'm standing.

Schroeder, also asleep upon first impact, said he "figured we were sliding down a cliff or something." He smelled gas, realized he needed to get out of the bus and climbed through an emergency exit.

"I just remember bags, and people lying there moaning," he said.

The Rev. Heather Collins, head of the chaplaincy at the hospital, said several victims described the strong smell of diesel fuel as they rescued their more seriously injured friends.

"It was terrifying experience," Collins said. "It was dark and confusing. They described a lot of freeze-frame images."

Allen Slabaugh, a sophomore pitcher from Dalton, Ohio, was thrown from the bus with three other passengers before the vehicle plunged from the bridge, said Chester Slabaugh, the student's father.

The student needed some stitches, his father said.

"He was sleeping and then got ejected before it went over the bridge," the elder Slabaugh said Friday morning as he prepared to go to the airport. "He did not go over, by the grace of God."

As the bus lay on its side across the interstate lanes, passengers crawled out, some through a roof hatch, others through the shattered front windshield. Some were helped by motorists who had stopped beyond the wreck. Luggage and personal belongings were scattered over the highway.

One motorist found a student on the pavement. "I'm freezing. Can you find me a blanket?" the youth asked.

Minutes after the crash, junior Greg Sigg called his mother in Ohio. "He was still laying on I-75," she said. "It was not his cellphone [that he used]. It was just laying on the road. He called to say there was an accident but I'm alive. He said there's bodies laying all around me."

Her son, an all-conference first baseman from Maumee, Ohio, suffered broken facial bones and facial cuts and a deep gash on his leg.

Quickly after the crash, the area was swarmed with emergency vehicles.

Atlanta fire officials said 55 firefighters responded, as well as emergency medical workers from area hospitals. Crews used the jaws of life to extricate some passengers, and they shored up the vehicle to stabilize it.

On Northside Drive, above the wreck, luggage and baseball equipment was scattered on the road, apparently dislodged from the bus when it hit the bridge wall.

The plunging bus clipped an SUV and a pickup below on I-75, but neither driver was hurt.

Danny Lloyd, a Frostburg, Md., resident traveling from Cincinnati to Florida and driving the pickup, thought he saw a "big slab of concrete" falling from the bridge on top of him.

"I just closed my eyes and stepped on the gas," said Lloyd, who slid by the bus, getting hit on the roof. His front bumper was torn off.

The southbound HOV off-ramp to Northside Drive comes up suddenly, after a flurry of signs with a host of messages for drivers. Some just say it is an HOV lane. One says the left part of I-75 is about to split off into the I-85 merge. Next to that, a smaller HOV sign says "South I-75," and points down to the far left lane. Drivers are warned a mile and a half-mile in advance that they are nearing an exit.

But soon after that, the far-left HOV lane spawns an exit ramp, dotted off on its left. The signs there are the first indication that going left means exiting the interstates.

The state Department of Transportation said it is clear which lane the HOV lane is, and that the signs and ramp configuration meet or exceeded federal safety standards.

Stephen T. Henry, Director of Operations for the DOT, said the agency put two "stop ahead" signs on the ramp before the actual stop sign on Northside Drive, though it was not required to do so.

"You have to make a conscious decision to exit," he said.

The bus company, Executive Coach Luxury Travel of Ottawa, Ohio, did not return a phone call but said on its Web site: "We at Executive Coach Luxury Travel Inc. are deeply saddened ... We are continuing to cooperate with the officials investigating the accident in Atlanta ... Our thoughts and prayers are with all of the victims and their families."

According to Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the company had 20 drivers and seven buses a year ago. There had been no crashes in the past 24 months reported to the agency.

In Bluffton, students and faculty spent the day grieving.

The university is affiliated with the Mennonite Church USA and is situated on a 234-acre campus in the northwest Ohio village of Bluffton.

The Division III baseball team was headed to play Eastern Mennonite in Sarasota, Fla., today, and then on to the Gene Cusic Classic in Fort Myers, Fla., to play in annual tournament, where more than 300 teams come to play a week's worth of games during spring break.

"This is a sad tragedy for the students, families, friends and Bluffton University campus community. We are asking for prayers of support during this time," said Bluffton University President James M. Harder.

In Atlanta, many churches, colleges, civic organizations and baseball leagues mobilized Friday to assist Bluffton students and their family members as they arrived in town.

More than 30 concerned parents offered to host students and relatives at their homes.

Kim Cornell, a parent heading the efforts of the Buckhead baseball league, said she had offered the organization's help to the Red Cross.

"We have boys who go away on trips," she said. "When I think of families who can't get there and how they're worrying about them being here alone. It broke my heart."

Reporters Eric Stirgus, Anna Varela, Ariel Hart, Rhonda Cook, Keri Smith, Doug Nurse, Ernie Suggs, Paul Donsky, database analyst Megan Clarke, and researchers Richard Hallman and Alice Wertheim contributed to this report.