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BASTROP – A Bastrop County grand jury has indicted a cement-truck driver acc u s e d of causing a fatal crash last spring with a Hays Consolidated Independent School District prekindergarten bus.
The indictments issued Aug. 6 charge Jerry Hernandez, 43, with two counts of manslaughter and two counts of criminally negligent homicide.
The March 22 collision claimed the lives of Ulises Rodriguez, 5, and Ryan Wallace, 33, a University of Texas at Austin student.
Hernandez requested new legal counsel a week prior to the hearing.
The cement truck was traveling east on Texas 21. The school bus and two other vehicles were driving west.
According to a probe by the Department of Public Safety, the concrete truck veered into a lane of oncoming traffic and collided with the school bus, which was returning from a field trip to Bastrop Zoo and was on its way to Tom Green Elementary School in Buda.
Wallace was in one of the vehicles behind the bus, officials said.
Court documents show that Hernandez told a trooper he smoked marijuana several hours before the accident, used cocaine and only got three hours of sleep.
Additional reports from court filings show Hernandez had three previous positive drug tests in 2020, 2022 and 2023.
According to investigators, in December 2022, Hernandez reportedly tested positive for marijuana, then tested positive for cocaine in April last year.
His Texas commercial driver’s license was still eligible in Texas, as state driver’s licensing agencies are not required to downgrade CDL statuses until November 2024, according to changes in the Federal Register.
Francisco Martinez, identified in court documents as the owner of FJM Concrete LLC, the company that hired Hernandez, did not complete a background check on the driver, according to the report.
The company is facing several civil lawsuits filed in connection with the crash, as families seek compensation for the incident.
Hernandez’s next court date is scheduled for Oct. 28.
The bus at the time did not have seat belts; vehicles purchased prior to 2017 were not required by law to have them. The school district in April voted to equip its buses with restraints.
