‘Are y’all ready to die?’ - A Bus Driver asked Kids

Parents in Chattanooga, Tenn., are still trying to make sense of the tragedy that struck their community Monday when a school bus with 35 children aboard struck a tree, killing five and injuring nearly two dozen more.

The driver, Johnthony Walker, 24, was arrested and charged with five counts of vehicular homicide, reckless endangerment and reckless driving for the crash on the winding road.

As the city mourns, chilling reports have emerged alleging that Walker asked the students, “Are y’all ready to die?” before swerving off the road into a tree.

Jasmine Mateen, the mother of three children aboard the bus, lost her 6-year-old daughter in the crash. She told CBS News what one of her other children had to say about the driver.

“My daughter said right before the bus flipped that he was speeding around the curve and asked them ‘Are y’all ready to die?’” Mateen said to CBS correspondent Mark Strassmann.

According to Fletcher, the Chattanooga Police Department received a call just after 3:30 p.m. asking it to respond to a school bus crash involving students from Woodmore Elementary School, ranging from kindergarten to fifth grade.

“This is an absolute nightmare for this community, for this police department and for our partners in fire and EMS,” Fletcher said. “But I can assure you that the public safety professionals in Chattanooga are prepared and trained to make sure this is investigated thoroughly.”

He said a warrant had been issued to remove the black box from the bus and to remove the video evidence for inspection.

Twenty-three students were taken to area hospitals, and 12 were still there as of Tuesday evening, with six in critical condition.

“Many of them were scared or too dazed to talk to us,” Dr. Darvey Koller of the Children’s Hospital at Erlanger said at a Tuesday news conference.

Police say Walker was driving well above the narrow road’s 30 mph speed limit at the time of the crash. The incident has revived a debate about whether there should be a federal law requiring school buses to be equipped with seat belts.