Thu, Nov 26 2009
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Prayers to be said at Masses at Marian Days for victims of deadly charter-bus crash Philip Doan is one of 30 or 40 Vietnamese Catholics from Houston operating a food tent at Marian Days. Doan said he received a call at 6:30 a.m. from a relative who told him about the accident. He said he knew several of the victims of the bus crash.
“My brother-in-law’s father was one of the people killed in the crash,” Doan said. Doan, who is an adult leader of his church’s Boy Scout troop, said he knew another man killed in the crash. “I knew him because he worked with his church’s youth group,” he said. The Rev. Louis Nhien, the director of the Marian Days celebration, at a Mass at 7:30 a.m. Friday told those attending about the crash. Nhien said he asked those in attendance to pray for the victims and continue to pray at all subsequent Masses during the Marian Days festival. The CMC seminary was founded by an order of Vietnamese monks after the fall of South Vietnam. Marian Days was started 31 years ago as a reunion for Catholic Vietnamese refugees. Nhien spent most of Friday morning trying to get additional information about the crash. Working with the Carthage Police Department, Nhien was able to make contact with officials in Sherman. Reached by phone Friday afternoon, Nhien said he was able to confirm the identifies of eight of the 15 people killed in the accident, and that he also was given the names of 15 people who are in critical conditions at various hospitals in the Dallas area. Like Doan, Nhien said he knew some of the victims. One of the those killed was a lay-leader of the Vietnamese Martyrs Church of Houston. “I just spoke with the man a few weeks ago,” he said. Nhien said a woman who is in critical condition is the mother of a former member of the congregation community. There are a least four large Vietnamese Catholic parishes in the Houston area, Nhien said. He said that the churches all work closely together. Nhien said many of the thousands of people who travel to Carthage for Marian Days do so by charter bus. He said he was not aware of any other charter-bus accident related to Marian Days. Authorities say the crash was the deadliest bus crash since 2004, when 15 people were killed on a bus that crashed in eastern Arkansas as it headed to a Mississippi casino. “Charter bus is usually the safest way to travel here,” Nhien said. Doan said news of the crash likely made an impression on everyone at Marian Days regardless of from where they hailed. Because so many of those who attend the religious gathering travel great distances, the risk of an accident is always there. But Doan said it would be wrong to let that keep people from traveling to Marian Days. 
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