JACKSON, Miss. (ABP) — A July 12 rollover of a bus carrying a church youth group to a summer camp has claimed a second fatality.
Maggie Lee Henson, 12, died Aug. 2 after a three-week battle with critical head injuries received when the bus from First Baptist Church in Shreveport, La., blew a tire and overturned en route to a Passport youth camp in Georgia.
All 23 passengers were injured in the accident on an interstate highway near Meridian, Miss., several seriously. One, Brandon Ugarte, 14, died while being airlifted to the hospital.
Henson was thrown from the bus, which rolled several times, and trapped underneath. A busload of Alabama National Guard soldiers that happened on the scene helped upright the vehicle to free her.
She was taken to University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, Miss. She died at about 6:30 p.m. Sunday in a private room where she had been transferred July 31 from a kiosk in the Children's Hospital Pediatric Critical Care Unit.
Survivors include her father, John Henson, an associate pastor at the church; her mother, Jinny; and a younger brother, Jack.
Maggie Lee Henson was a rising seventh grader at First Baptist Church School.
Her parents reported details of her three-week fight for life on a website called CaringBridge.org.
Funeral arrangements are pending.
Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.