Richard Rees not only owned the Marietta company that organizes casino tours, he was driving the bus Thursday on such an excursion to North Carolina.
And a Forsyth County resident who was on that bus said Rees' actions just before a fatal crash in Gilmer County may have saved the lives of everyone else on board.
Linda Ledbetter, a Cumming council member, told Channel 2 Action News that she thinks Rees — who was the only fatality in the horrific two-vehicle crash — turned into the back of a tractor-trailer to avoid swerving and flipping the bus.
“He was very heroic,” Ledbetter said of Rees, who was 66. She added that Rees’ wife, Barbara, also was on the bus.
The Greatime Getaways charter bus had 48 mostly senior citizens on board and was en route to Harrah’s Valley River Casino in Murphy, N.C. The crash happened in North Georgia on Highway 515 at Whitestone Road, south of Ellijay.
Another tour bus passenger told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that with three-fourths of the tractor-trailer blocking the highway, there was nowhere for the bus to go.
“As soon as the accident happened, the bus driver — God bless him, he was killed — it blocked the front of the bus,” Bob Harding said Friday afternoon. “Nobody could get out.”
Several passengers were thrown from their seats, Harding said, and one woman’s face was covered in blood.
Emergency responders broke windows and opened a hole on the side of the bus. Passengers were told to lie on a surfboard, which was then moved down a ladder.
Harding and his companion, Esther Dunn, were taken by ambulance to a Cherokee County hospital, where they spent about two hours before being released. Dunn had chest pains, but X-rays showed she didn’t have any broken bones.
Harding, who had been on several trips in the past with Greatime Getaways, said they both feel fortunate.
A preliminary investigation showed that the tractor-trailer driver was at fault, according to the Georgia State Patrol. He was identified as Charles Howard, 56, of Concord, N.C.
Howard worked for Polcon Tile and Terrazzo Inc. in Charlotte, N.C. In January 2015, Polcon drivers were issued two unsafe driving violations: a lane restriction violation in South Carolina and failure to obey a traffic control device in Georgia. It was not known whether the driver involved in Thursday's crash had previously been cited.
Ledbetter suffered a concussion in the crash, but she knows it could have been much worse.
“I’m thankful I’m alive,” she said. “I wish the bus driver had made it.”
— Staff writer Alexis Stevens contributed to this article.
