when hell breaks loose

The way I see it, 46 people were lucky tonight.

Forty-five of them were children from West Valley Middle School, who all avoided major injuries after their bus driver lost control of the bus (for reasons unknown) and went for a wild, half-mile ride, hitting 12 other vehicles and injuring 26 people.

The final person was me, who got sent out to cover the story.

When I first got the page, it sounded pretty inconsequential: "PhoenixFD Medical Response 67th Ave / McDowell."

That was it. I thought, "That's vague," and shrugged my shoulders, more focused on my editor's critiques of a police story.

Then the next page came in: "PhoenixFD MED This will involve a school bus."

That triggered my editor. Instantly, his tired eyes widened.

"Oh no. This could be big," he said, rubbing his face with his hands.

I could hear both the terrible anticipation of a story involving injury to children and the lust for a big-time story in his voice. It's something we all share: a lust for stories.

Nothing can compare to the stress of driving to a scene in rush-hour traffic. I needed to get there as quickly as possible, but grid-lock had other plans. It took about 25 minutes to get to into the area and another 30 minutes to navigate my way through displaced traffic--the accident ran a gauntlet of nearly half a mile and police closed a good two miles of major road.

Even when I got to the scene, it was still chaos. Police and fire officers patrolled the perimeter of yellow police tape and news media of all kinds--television with large vans and cameras, radio with hand-held recorders, and me with my notebook--ran around talking to PIOs.
This is what I saw when I got to the scene:



The bus looked bad, but apparently other cars looked worse.

It took a long time to straighten out the facts; PIOs came up with new numbers for injuries, vehicles, and children involved every couple of minutes. I spent a good two hours there, among the police and other media workers, calling in facts and quotes as I collected them.

J-school can't compare to getting out in the field; that's where you learn real journalism.

a passion for tragedy

I should probably post the stories I did Friday before it gets too late. In the fast-paced world of breaking news, there's just never enough time for self-promotion. It was a polarized day: a dead body and a charity fund raiser.

I can't get over the excitement of this new internship. I'm working eight-hour shifts—plus school—and need to get up unearthly early, but I'm having a blast. The adrenaline high gets me through, particularly when my pager goes off and displays something to the tune of "MaricopaFD—Body found. Now CONFRIMRED dead. PD and FD to en route."

Friday was the first time I was dispatched to the scene. As soon as the call came in for the body, my editor, Aric, turned to me and said "you'd better get rolling." I hurried downstairs and just as I was getting into my truck, a call came in for an aircraft crash in Flagstaff.

I called Aric:
"Hey Aric. What was that?"
"We don't know yet. Just keep going to the body scene and I'll get Drew to work on whatever this is."
"Okay, I'll call you when I get there."
"Right, just see if anyone's talking yet and DON'T cross the police tape, remember?"
"Ha, right. I'll look for details and neighbors, then call you back."
"Okay; get going."

Exciting.

After a few hours, you start to get a sense of how many bad things happen in a city the size of Phoenix—fires, shootings, drowings, murder, plane crashes, etc. It seems a bit cold, but I really do find myself wishing bad things will happen, just to get the thrill of covering an epic story. I don't want people hurt, but the urgency is addictive.

Regardless, I don't cause these things; I make them into stories. It may seem callous to probe tragedy for information, but I think my job has the potential to give meaning to seemingly horrible events. By understanding and reporting on these events, I can turn them from a bad day into a day to be remembered. It's my job.