Phone calls at 2 a.m. rarely bring good news, and this one was no different.
VERNON BRYANT/DMN
Peter Hoang was among the more than 50 people who attended a Mass on Friday in Carrollton to pray for victims of the bus crash.The voice on the line told the Rev. Joseph Vu that a charter bus carrying dozens of his parishioners from Houston to Carthage, Mo., for a three-day religious festival had rolled off a bridge and fallen 12 feet down an embankment.
An hour later, the pastor of the 850-family Vietnamese Martyrs Church headed to North Texas, not yet knowing who was alive or dead. He arrived in Dallas as the sun rose and shuttled from hospital to hospital trying to soothe injured parishioners, to find out the extent of the tragedy, and to comfort the families of his wounded flock.
"It's very sad, but I know they are devout Catholics," Father Vu said. "They are going to worship God. I know that they are in God's hands.' "
The crash early Friday in Sherman took 15 lives and injured dozens.
Father Vu's parishioners and that of Our Lady of Lavang Parish were part of a three-bus caravan that left Thursday night headed to the Marian Days festival.
From Houston to Dallas and far beyond, the tragedy dealt a body blow to the Vietnamese community, particularly the tight-knit Catholic Vietnamese.
Vigils were held across the state. More than 50 people attended Mass at Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ Vietnamese Church in Carrollton on Friday night to pray for victims, their friends and family.
Father Joseph Son-Van Nguyen acknowledged the desire by the faithful to question why bad things like this happen.
"Faith is not easy, but we have to sacrifice ourselves - sometimes our lives," he told parishioners.
He assured them that nothing is out of God's hands.
"We feel sorrow. We feel empty. We feel somehow God wasn't present there. But God, I think, will open the door to welcome them - all of them.
"Pray for them."
All day, the story dominated the airwaves of radio and TV stations serving the Vietnamese community.
"It's very sad news," said Kien Nguyen, president of Little Saigon radio in Houston. "This is a big deal for us. In the Christian community, they are very quiet and they support one another."
Vien Van, account manager with Weekly Classified Ads, which serves the Vietnamese community in the Houston area, said he sometimes attends the Martyrs church.
"It's going to hit the community as a whole, not just the church, because we are all united," Mr. Van said.
Dallas-area ministers rushed to the accident scene and to area hospitals.
Through an interpreter, the Rev. Paul Nguyen of Our Mother of Perpetual Help Parish in Garland described a somber scene at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas.
"People are very confused," he said. "Now, they're waiting for their families to arrive."
At Father Vu's church, established in 1986, parishioners grieved and mourned during a morning Mass.
Mary Nguyen, a member of the parish for more than a decade, went to the church after learning that a close friend had died. She'd planned to meet her friend Thursday night, but the visit was canceled so her friend could go on the trip. She began sobbing as she described a dream Thursday night that kept waking her up, in which she was on a trip with the friend then opened a suitcase and saw dead bodies.
"I feel so sorry because she's dead. ... She was just a very good person," she said. "The church is like one big family here. We're very close. We stick together."
Theresa Le, with her red-rimmed eyes, sought solace with the congregation that was like family to her. She prayed for friends who were on the bus, as well as her best friend, Vo Ta, who died in the crash.
"She was a very nice person," said Ms. Le, a postal employee. "Before she left on the trip, she came to my house and brought me cupcakes."
Family members waited anxiously at hospitals from here to Oklahoma.
Tien Nguyen of Houston drove to Sherman after learning from family that five relatives were on the bus. "Everybody knows everybody," he said.
He went to Wilson N. Jones Medical Center after learning that the hospital had received the largest number of accident patients. He found three family members at Wilson but was unable to find the names of two other relatives on any hospital patient lists.
By late Friday afternoon, Father Vu had made his way to a hospital in Durant, Okla., where he had found the chairman of his parish council. The man had lost his wife. His sister was severely injured.
"He was the one to see 11 of them dead there at the site," said Father Vu, adding that he knew for sure that at least four of his church members had died.
He said he had prayed with his parishioners, but many of them are too injured to talk. "They have broken arms, necks broken," Father Vu said.
"They trust in God. What we can do is just pray."
The Houston Chronicle and staff writers Blanca Cantu, Rachel Slade and Ian Hamilton contributed to this report.
BACKGROUND: The destination
