Colo. police probe bus crash that killed two New Mexicans

Accident claimed lives of driver and man who was in training to become a priest

The Colorado State Patrol on Monday was still investigating what caused a bus crash that claimed the lives of two New Mexicans, the driver and a man training to be a priest, and sent more than a dozen others to the hospital Sunday north of Pueblo.

The chartered bus carrying members of a high school youth group from the Aquinas Newman Center University Catholic Community in Albuquerque was returning from Denver following a religious conference when it struck a bridge abutment and veered off Interstate 25 southbound around 2:30 p.m., according to the Colorado State Patrol.

Police initially said they suspected the driver, one of the two people killed, may have had a medical incident that caused the crash, but Colorado State Patrol Sgt. Blake

White said Monday the agency is waiting for an autopsy report before they will know for sure.

Police on Monday said one of the two people who died was Jason P. Marshall, 53, identified on the St. Thomas Aquinas University Parish website as a seminarian with the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, who accompanied the group to the conference.

The parish, based at the University of New Mexico, also identified the driver, who police say was ejected from the bus and died at the scene, as Anthony Padilla.

Marshall, a native of Staten Island, N.Y., was a member of Our Lady of the Annunciation parish in Albuquerque and had attended the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio, the Archdiocese of Santa Fe said.

“Jason was a splendid and exemplary seminarian, a humble man who deeply cared for others,” Archbishop John Wester told the Associated Press.

The Los Alamos Reporter reported Monday that Marshall spent the summer of 2017 living at the Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish in Los Alamos.

White of the Colorado State Patrol said in a statement Monday that nine juveniles and six adults were on the bus.

“Five of the occupants sustained serious injuries and one of them remains in critical condition at Penrose Hospital,” according to the statement. “Of those five, one is a juvenile and the remaining are adults. The other occupants of the bus sustained minor injuries and have been released from the hospital. Three occupants remain hospitalized at Parkview Medical Center.”

The parish did not immediately return a call seeking comment but has posted that Wester will hold a special Mass for the crash victims Weednesday in Albuquerque.