On January 11th, the Neumann men’s basketball team had a tough loss against Marymount in Virginia, dropping a close game 82-77. The biggest loss they took that night, however, was sleep and time as they were in a bus accident on their way back from the game around 10:30 p.m.
The bus was totaled and unable to transport the team home after running into a guard rail on an exit ramp in Maryland. Luckily, no one was injured from the impact, and everyone was grateful to be able to walk away from it.
Team chaplain Joseph Glass said it was “pretty dark with a little bit of rain,” indicating that the weather was a possible contributing factor to the accident. Perhaps the driver misjudged the exit ramp because the conditions made it hard to see.
Neumann forward Justin Smith said that, before the accident, he was on his phone and heard coach Jim Rullo yell, “Move over, move over!” to the driver before the bus hit the rail, causing it to get really bumpy and slow down quickly.
The first thing Smith said he did was to make sure his teammate sitting next to him was ok immediately afterward, as the impact caught them by surprise. Glass also stated that he went into protection mode, checking on all the players to ensure their safety.
The trip from Neumann to Marymount was already long, a two-and-a-half-hour trip to get there. The accident didn’t make things any better on their way back as they took a detour on a shuttle to the closest firehouse in Bethesda, Maryland, waiting for another bus to arrive. For a short period of time, they were in the firehouse before finding out it was against the firehouse regulations, so they had to leave and wait inside the shuttle.
The wait was approximately four hours before the new bus arrived to bring them back. They eventually made it to Neumann around 4:30 a.m., leaving some of the players with only three hours before their first class.
The driver made sure everyone was okay afterward as well and said he was embarrassed that this had happened, according to Glass. In the driver’s 30 years of driving the Academy bus, he says he had never been in an accident and is very grateful no one got injured. He had been driving the men’s basketball team for a while and had a good relationship with the team as everyone knew him.
Regardless, ever since the accident, there has been a new driver for the team’s away games according to Smith, who said that the driver was always a nice person and that the team still has a good relationship with him as they know he felt really bad about the whole situation.
