Michael Patrick / Knoxville News Sentinel via AP
Emergency personnel search the scene of a crash that killed eight people Wednesday on three vehicles, including a church a bus, on Interstate 40 near Knoxville, Tenn.
By M. Alex Johnson, Staff Writer, NBC News
Frantic members flocked to a North Carolina church Wednesday to learn whether their friends and relatives were among eight people killed and 14 others injured when a bus carrying elderly congregants overturned in eastern Tennessee.
Eight of the injured — all of them described as senior citizens — were in critical condition.
"I'm worried about my brother," a man at Front Street Baptist Church in Statesville, north of Charlotte, told NBC station WCNC. "He might be hurt. I'm hoping he's still alive."
Police cars ringed the church to keep away reporters and onlookers.
The bus was carrying 18 people, including the driver, when it overturned about 2 p.m. ET, said Highway Patrol Sgt. Bill Miller, who called the accident a "very horrific event."
The bus was taking members of the church's Young at Heart group for senior citizens back home from the Fall Jubilee Conference, the church said. The Jubilee is an annual preaching and gospel music gathering in Gatlinburg, Tenn., which ended Wednesday.
Miller said a front tire blew out as the bus was traveling east on Interstate 40 east of Knoxville. The bus crossed the median and struck a tractor-trailer and a sport-utility vehicle carrying three people, overturning the bus and setting the tractor-trailer on fire, they said.
Eight people were killed, Miller said, adding: "We hope and pray that there will be no more."
Jefferson County Emergency Management Director Mike Phillips said the crash was the worst accident in his 21 years with the county.
"It was a tragic day today," he said.
The University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville was treating 14 patients, eight of them in critical condition and two of them in serious condition. The rest were stable.
The medical center It described all of the patients as elderly.
Harold Ross, who lives near the scene, said he was just finishing a round of golf several miles away when he was startled by a "loud boom."
"I saw two chutes of smoke, black smoke go up in the air, and then they came together," Ross said. "They started out separate and they came together almost instantly."
As church leaders raced to the crash site 140 miles west, sympathy poured in on the church's Facebook page:
In a statement, the organizers of the Fall Jubilee called the accident "a tragic loss."
"All the Jubilee team have you in our prayers," it said.
Niven McCall-Mazza and Edgar Zuniga Jr. of NBC News contributed to this report.
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This story was originally published on Wed Oct 2, 2013 3:32 PM EDT
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