January 19, 2000
New Mexico van accident takes 3 lives
___By John Loudat
___Baptist New Mexican
___ALAMOGORDO, N.M. (ABP)--A tractor-trailer rig rear-ended a church van carrying senior adults to a funeral in New Mexico Jan. 8, killing three of the van's occupants and injuring the other nine.
___The crash took place just outside of Tinnie, N.M., 40 miles west of Roswell, on a winding section of U.S. 70.
___The van carried 12 people from First Baptist Church of Alamogordo on their way to a graveside service at the town cemetery. The funeral was for the stepson of another member of the church's senior-adult department.
___As the van began a left turn into the cemetery, a tractor-trailer rig struck it from behind. After impact, the van traveled more than 500 feet through two barbed-wire fences before landing upright in a field.
___Three passengers in the van's rear seat died at the scene. They were Emmet Carson, 70, who worked as the church's senior-adult minister, and two other church members: Flo Otto, 72, and Vera Wagner, 76.
___The other passengers, including the driver, the church's 48-year-old minister of education, Garland Peek, were hospitalized. One, Barbara Hanna, 73, was in critical condition.
___The driver of the truck, Bruce Miller, 45, was unhurt. A police report said any possible citations were pending.
___Bill Jones, pastor of First Baptist Church in Tinnie, said he learned about the crash when he arrived at the cemetery about a half-mile from the church to conduct graveside services.
___Jones waited with mourners inside the cemetery while emergency personnel, including four of his parishioners, cared for the injured across the highway. They proceeded with the service when the last ambulances left.
___Word of the accident spread quickly across the state.
___Fellow Baptists in New Mexico wasted no time responding in ministry.
___Ministers rushed to hospitals in Ruidoso, about 30 miles away, and Roswell to minister to victims and family member.
___Bart Montgomery, director of missions for Mountain Valley Baptist Association, visited Carson's widow and called Albuquerque pastor Bob Butler, asking him to break the news to the other victims' families.
___Butler, pastor of Sandia Baptist Church, is former pastor of the Alamogordo church. He moved to Albuquerque in 1995.
___The 10 p.m. newscasts on most New Mexicans' televisions that night opened with scenes of a prayer vigil held at the Alamogordo church three hours earlier.
___After the service, Montgomery said the church had already begun to rally around and help one another.
___"The church will do well," he predicted, expressing his and his church's appreciation for the deluge of calls from all over the state that day.
___"In 30 years of ministry, I've never seen anything like this," Richard Smith, interim pastor at First Baptist Church in Alamogordo, said of the accident and overwhelming response.
___The morning after the accident, Smith preached a sermon titled "O Come Let Us Worship," based on Psalm 95.
___He said he hoped to lead the stunned church family to focus on God's help rather than why the tragedy occurred.
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