November
18, 1950
Bus
Driver Saves Football Team
A bus driver saved 33
Western State College football players from injury and death after the brakes
failed while they were traveling downhill through Monarch Pass in the Rocky
Mountains. The team was on its way from Gunnison, Colorado to Canon City for a
game against Adams State College, when the air pressure failed in the
college-owned bus, and the gearshift moved out of second gear into neutral.
Even worse, the gear shift broke when head Coach Joe Thomas was trying to put
the bus back in gear, and the emergency hand brake didn't slow the speed. For
the next 17 minutes, driver Jerry Tobin steered the vehicle around 23 miles of
hairpin curves at speeds of up to 110 miles per hour (and passing one car while
avoiding an oncoming vehicle) before bringing it to a stop at Salida. The
players assisted by shifting from one side of the bus to the other at Tobin's
direction. Despite the near-fatal experience, the Western State Mountaineers
beat the Adams State Grizzlies, 35-14
Born in 1950?
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