Our Precious Loss

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Today I went to Radcliff, which is a town just outside of the Fort Knox Army post. I made a couple of stops, one of which was the memorial you see in the photo. I’ve passed it a million times: the sign around mile marker 41 on Interstate 71 just inside the southern boundary of Carroll County, Kentucky. All the sign says is, “Site of fatal bus crash, May 14, 1988.” That’s all the Department of Transportation would allow, because it is a federal highway. On May 14, 1988, a bus from a church in Radcliff was heading home after an outing at Kings Island, a large amusement park north of Cincinnati. The bus was hit by a drunk driver. Because of where the impact occurred, the bus’s gas tank was ruptured and started a fire. Twenty seven people, only three of whom were adults, died. It was, and it remains (and may it never be topped), the worst drunk driving wreck in American history. The Radcliff memorial is at North Hardin Memory Gardens in Radcliff. It’s actually three memorials in one. The one in the back was a gift from the Louisville Courier-Journal newspaper. It says, “Let all who view this monument count our dead and know the terrible legacy of drunken driving.” The walkway is bordered by two monuments that make up the second memorial. On the left, the names of 24 youngsters and three adults who were killed are listed, with a Pentecostal symbol (the church in question was the Radcliff First Assemblies of God) and the words, “Deceased: Gone to rest, God knows best.” On the right, the 40 survivors. The symbol on that side is the logo for Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and the words, “Survived: Spared for a season, God knows the reason.” On the sides are a verse from Psalm 139 and a quote: “Don’t drink and drive! We have not another loved one to spare” (in English and German). The front of the memorial is a bench. It is engraved with three simple words: “Our Precious Loss.” That’s very appropriate. Much like the current tragedy in Texas, the Carrollton bus crash wasn’t just an incident in Carrollton, or affecting the church or Radcliff. It was OUR loss. And the sad thing is that, although safety improvements were made to school buses in the wake of the crash (like enclosed gas tanks, extra emergency exits, and fire-resistant material for the seats), the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that, in 2023 (the most recent year stats are available), some thirty five years AFTER the tragedy, 12,429 people died as a result of drunk driving. We have a memorial because it was so many killed at once. But every drunk driving death is a precious loss, too.