Charges in fatal bus crash filed against driver

Memorial service
Students cry before a memorial service at Pelican Rapids High School gymnasium for Jessica Weishair,16, and those injured when a bus carrying students from Pelican Rapids High School crashed in Albertville on its way back from Chicago.
AP Photo/Richard Tsong-Taatarii

Criminal charges have been filed against the driver of a tour bus that ran off a Wright County highway and crashed, killing one of the high school students on board.

69-year-old Loren Ernst, of Moorhead, is charged with criminal vehicular homicide, in the April crash near Albertville.

"He has admitted he may have possibly dozed off at the time of the crash. And the Minnesota State Patrol determined that the defendant was fatigued to the extent that he fell asleep as his bus was traveling on I-94 at county road 137, causing it to leave the roadway and crash into the ditch," said Mark Peterson, a Minnesota State Patrol lieutenant.

Bus crash
One student died and more than a dozen were injured when a bus carrying students and others rolled over on I-94 near Albertville, Minn.
MPR Photo/Jess Mador

The driver of a second bus told investigators Ernst had complained of feeling fatigued, and had drifted over the fog line a couple times.

The charter bus carrying Pelican Rapids High School band students, who were heading home from a trip to Chicago.

Sixteen-year-old sophomore Jessica Weishair of Barnesville, was killed, and dozens of others were injured.

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