GRAY SUMMIT • Their school bus was smashed into another bus. There were cries and screams. Emergency workers whisked past them to tend to the injured.

The Red Regiment Marching Band students who walked away from the crash made a series of frantic phone calls to their parents. A small group huddled to pray.

Christopher Stull, in the midst of the chaotic scene, placed a call to his home.

"His voice was shaking, and he said, 'Dad there was a bad accident,' " recalled his father, Daniel. "He started to give me a graphic visual of what took place. I told him to relax and start to pray. I prayed with him."

For many, an agonizing wait followed to be reunited with parents at different hospitals. For the parents, there were prayers for the victims, worry about the effects on their kids — and a certain sense of relief.

"We are very fortunate to be able to take our son home with us today," said Kelly Griffith, whose son Kolby was on the second bus.

The students from John F. Hodge High School were headed for their annual field trip to Six Flags when the first school bus, carrying the girls, slammed into a pickup. The bus carrying the boys then slammed into the girls' bus, which came to rest atop a truck tractor.

Christopher Stull, 15, a sophomore who plays saxophone, was treated for minor injuries and released from St. Clare Health Center in Fenton.

According to his father, Christopher was laughing with a friend when he heard skidding, then felt the impact.

"It threw him forward and the bench in front of him caught him in the center of his chest," Daniel Stull said. "The doctor said there would be bruising and soreness because it's sort of a compression injury. He said he'll feel it really bad in the morning when he wakes up."

Donna Lorts got the news from a phone call from her 16-year-old son, Taylor. "Mom, I'm OK, but something really bad happened," he told her from his cell phone.

He wouldn't tell her much else.

"He didn't want to tell me too much because he thought I would worry," she said.

Her husband, Steve Lorts, then called his son. He could tell by Taylor's voice that the boy was in shock. He had been taken by ambulance to St. John's Mercy Hospital in Washington, and Taylor thought he had a dislocated shoulder.

"He said after they got the critically injured out of the way, they went back and checked on the others," Steve Lorts said. "It sounded like he got off pretty quick. He was in the very back of the bus, which was the safest position to be in on that bus."

Kolby Griffith was also in the back of the boys' bus, and he couldn't see much from his seat.

"All I know is that the impact was pretty large," he said softly to a group of reporters outside Cardinal Glennon Children's Medical Center. "It was all very, very quick."

After the students were evacuated, they met their parents at the area hospitals where they were taken for treatment.

Donna Lorts cried when she and her husband saw their only child for the first time, about five hours after the accident. The couple had been stuck in traffic backed up from the crash.

Doctors determined Taylor had a hairline fracture to his right shoulder. They sent him home with his arm in a sling and scheduled follow-up appointments.

The family had to pass the accident site on their way to their home in Phelps County.

"He never looked at the bus the whole time we drove by it," Steve Lorts said. "He's got a whole lot going on in his head right now."

Reality began setting in for Christopher Stull and his parents as they drove home from the hospital as well.

"I'm shaken up," said Regenia Stull. "I'm shaking and crying. Then I'm fine. Then shaking and crying again."

Christopher, she said, kept drifting off to sleep in the back seat but would jerk awake. They told him that his friend, Jessica Brinker, did not survive the crash.

"He took it really hard," Regenia Stull said. "I think we're in for a tough couple of days."

-----

Denise Hollinshed of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.