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Jacob Pearman, now a pastor at the Gloryland Harvest Church, chats with his daughter Cheryl Logdson, who survived the May, 14, 1988 bus crash in which a drunk driver jumped across four lanes of traffic killing 27 people, three adults and 24 children. One of the fatalities was the bus driver, John Pearman, Jacob's brother.
RADCLIFF, Ky. -He knew right away, unlike the rest of the families who sat waiting, contemplating the inevitable as they called names of survivors. About 10:30 p.m. Jacob Pearman got the call.
"Come over to the church," said Lee Williams, pastor at the First Assembly of God Church in Radcliff, Ky. "The bus has been involved an accident."
That is all Pearman, a chairman at the First Assembly of God, knew until he got to the church.
"The bus has been hit by a pickup truck," Williams said.
His thoughts raced in his head searching for some form of conciliation. What could a pickup truck ever do to a 67-passenger bus?
And then the call from the state police came. This crash was bad. An hour into the ordeal, and there were already 17 fatalities. The only person identifiable from the charred remains was the bus driver, John Pearman, Jacob's brother.
A drunk driver heading the wrong way down the highway in a pickup truck on May 14, 1988, slammed into the bus head-on. The bus erupted into flames, killing 24 children and three adults. Thirty-other people were injured. The driver of the pickup, Larry Mahoney, was a repeat drunk-driving offender. He survived, sustaining only minor injuries. His blood alcohol concentration was .24, significantly more than the legal limit in Kentucky.
"From there the rest of the night got to be a long night as we dealt with parents coming and looking for their children, and their children weren't there," Pearman said. "We didn't know what to tell them because we didn't know who was alive and who wasn't alive, who was in the hospital and who wasn't."
So Jacob took command of the situation as his brain frantically searched for reasons behind the deaths. He walked among the pews of the church and began to talk to the growing numbers of family and friends who could not withhold their grief.
"I had a job to do," he said. "And I just pulled myself together, and yet at the same time when I was helping others, I was still waiting to hear about my daughter."
And along with the abrupt ending to his brother's life, Jacob began to tremble with the thoughts about his daughter, Cheryl Logsdon, who was also on the bus.
"It was tough," he said. "My brother was only 11 months older than I am. We were real close. We were the only two children. We didn't know what happened until later that night. We didn't know that it was a drunk driver involved."
Every time a child was sent to a hospital, his or her parents were called. And the longer the parents waited, the more likely they would mourn the next day. Death in the church meant not hearing the phone ring.
Children arrived at hospitals all over Kentucky. Burn victims and smoke inhalations each the result of the same crash flew, drove and landed in emergency rooms across the state.
Cheryl saw the pain and death as a 14-year-old. And when the smoke cleared, 27 of her friends were gone. Twenty-seven lives were burned not directly by the flames but by the extreme heat of the bus. Her cousin, who was a few seats behind her, was burned on every part of her body not clothed.
Her skin literally melted off.
"I remember someone saying, 'I think we hit a deer,'" Cheryl said. "And then instantly the bus filled with black smoke."
It was a frantic push to get to the emergency door only five rows behind, a shove that haunts her daily. Children became confused and misguided through the haze and heat as they passed out or lumbered into the direct flames.
"At the back door, I'll never forget this, was a pile of teenagers," she said. "I didn't even realize my burns until I got off the bus. My cousin who was right behind me was severely burned."
Cheryl suffered burns and smoke inhalation that damaged her lungs. She stayed in Louisville at the hospital for four days. Her cousin, Christy Pearman, had 20 reconstructive surgeries and stayed in the hospital for more than two months.
The shock, however, has lived on, from the moment she faced Larry Mahoney in court to the flashbacks of the intense pain and heat she experiences whenever she sees a school bus.
"It's a part of my everyday life," she said. "I think about it constantly. I think about it daily still. And there is always a constant reminder, whether it's the burns or when I see a school bus. It just pops back into my mind."
As the bus burned, John escorted children off, fighting flames with a fire extinguisher in one hand and leading children to the back row. Spirals of black smoke obstructed their view, and Christy Pearman, John's daughter, wanted nothing more than to get to her father.
Fighting flames, extreme heat and smoke inhalation, father and daughter fought to get to each other. John guided children through the darkness, and Christy yearned for the comfort of her father. She scorched every part of her body in the process, exposing her skin to the unbearable strength of a fuel fire.
"She could have gotten right off," Jacob said. "But she wanted to get to her father. All of the kids testified that he could have got off. Instead, he was trying to make sure they all got off."
John and Jacob Pearman could fight about anything and everything. And if anyone ever crossed the paths of one, they surely met the other. They were more than just brothers; they were each other's crutch. The relief of his daughter's survival was tempered by his brother's death.
As they grew older, John began to show more of his personable side. He could talk to anyone and everyone. Smiling and charming his way into the political arena, he quickly took to the campaign lifestyle. The president of the Young Democrats, John ran for county circuit clerk and won. But for John, being a civil servant meant serving a larger constituency.
"His goal was someday to work his way to becoming the governor of Kentucky," Jacob said. "He was headed toward the place he wanted to be, but it didn't work out."
He never lost an election. The youth minister of the church, John had joked with his younger brother that May morning about switching places with him.
Now inside the church, kneeling in front of the altar, Jacob was angry the entity that is supposed to be his savior ˘ God.
The Aftermath
Years passed. The courtroom became a blur; the only resounding image was the testimony of almost 30 children burned and scarred by a drunk driver that never raised his head during the court proceedings.
Mahoney served a 10-year sentence and was released. Jacob, Christy and Cheryl served as constant reminders for the whole community.
"Was it too long or too short?" Jacob asked. "I don't think he could ever pay back for 27 lives."
"We are talking about going down a four-lane highway and going down the wrong side of the road. It's not like he's on a two-lane highway passing you," he said. "He's on the wrong side of the road."
The big breakdowns got further apart for Jacob, Christy and Cheryl. Then there were those special moments when they would resurface. Birthdays, holidays and the Louisville and Kentucky basketball games would send Jacob into an instant swirl of emotions, from anger to pain. The brothers enjoyed their basketball rivalries, and when the teams got together, so did the Pearmans. Positioned on either end of the couch or on the phone during the game, it was Jacob and Louisville and John and Kentucky.
"The first year after that when the University of Kentucky and Louisville played, I wanted to pick up the phone and talk to John," he said. "But he wasn't there. In fact, weeks before it, it was all over the news; they were talking about how it would be a good game.
"I wanted to talk to him, start an argument with him about it. And he wasn't there to do it. That was my hard times. And even now, it was '88, it's been 15 years, and every time it's basketball season, I still think about picking up the phone and calling John."
The refusal to accept the tragedy stings more than anything.
Funerals with short caskets and mass burials with 10 caskets lowered into the ground became the norm. At Jacob's brothers' funeral, there were two caskets, a double funeral.
"You got through a period of somewhat shock and disbelief," Cheryl said. "When was I going to wake up? It was a dream. We didn't lose 27 of our friends. We lost my uncle, my cousin, my friends.
"Coming from a large family, death was a common occurrence. I had seen plenty of death before because death was a reality."
They erected a sign memorializing the accident site, and now, 15 years later, the city of Carrollton plans to tear the sign down. The sign has made its point. Carrollton and those who reside in the Louisville suburb have had enough notoriety for the site of the worst drinking and driving accident in the United States. But the marks still live on the arms of Cheryl and the 57 family members that waited in the church.
"It's everybody's business," Jacob said. "I guess if they want to drink, it's their business. But when you get on the highway, it's my business because it's my family, your family, everyone else's families that are out there."
A reverend now, Jacob is in charge of his own ministry. It is a ministry that he has formed out of his relationship with God, whom he credits for bringing him out of the blur. But, unlike some of the families who can never again step foot into the First Assembly of God, Jacob and his family have sought their own answers. And they have come to the conclusion that life is more precious than any drink, any party or any night in a bar. Life is in that sign on Interstate 71; life is in the eyes of the survivors and the eyes of their families.
"It needs to stay up there to remind people of the consequences of drinking and driving," Jacob said. "And I understand the people of Carrollton thinking it needs to come down because its their community that gets known as the community as the worst drinking and driving accident in the country.
"But I'm sorry it happened there. I don't hold it against them. It's a reminder. Twenty-seven people lost their lives, 24 were children under the age of 14. They were just snuffed out of there. It's not like it's a minor thing. Nobody's death is."
Meanwhile, there is that bend in the road right outside Carrollton where the sign stands. It's no grand memorial. No 27 white crosses, no wreaths. Just a green sign nearly identical to other highway signs on either side of the road, with the one difference being the words posted on that sign. The words that make the hair stand up on the necks of those who pass. "The site of the fatal bus crash on May 14, 1988." It bears no flowery words of remembrance and no grand answers to the questions left unanswered. It is just a nameless grave for 27 people.
