A chilling memory of bus crash

NEWARK, N.J. - Almost a year after his wife, Carole, died in a bus accident in Chile that killed 12 retirees, Harold Ruchelman remembers exactly what happened before their vacation tour bus plunged off a mountain road.

Ruchelman said Marian Diamond, who lived in the same Monroe Township senior citizen community he did, was talking about how safe the driver was being. Ira Greenfield, Ruchelman's cousin, warned Diamond about jinxing him.

"Within 20 seconds after that we crashed," Ruchelman told the Sunday Star-Ledger of Newark.

"I threw myself down on the floor and covered my head," said Ruchelman, who was married for 42 years. "I counted 'one, two, three' and thought to myself, 'How many times is this thing going to roll before it stops and how bruised am I going to be?' The next thing I know I'm waking up."

Ruchelman, 69, took a few pictures of the accident site before he decided it was too morbid, but it wasn't until he got home that he noticed his wife's body in the background of one of them.

Ruchelman, 69, and Marian's husband, Bernard Diamond, 77, were the only two American survivors from the March 22 crash. Ten of the 12 people killed in crash lived at The Ponds at Clearbrook and had taken a day trip during their Celebrity Millennium cruise.

The investigation into what went wrong came to a close in November, and mechanical defect was ruled out, the Star-Ledger reported. Driver Cristian Contreras Guzman was charged with 12 counts of negligent homicide, but his case hasn't yet gone to trial.

There are no plans for a formal memorial on the anniversary of the crash, but residents at The Ponds said they don't need one.

"We have not forgotten," said Judy Unger, who told the newspaper she lived next to two of the victims and was friendly with some of the others.

The memory of the victims also lives on at the Congregation of Concordia, where six of them attended, and Ruchelman and Diamond still go. The Congregation dedicated a Torah to the victims of the crash and placed it in the ark in front of the synagogue.

"Every time we open the ark, which is often, [the widowers] see it," said Cantor Eli Perlman. "I don't know how they handle it. They say it's OK, but I'm not sure."

Back at home, Ruchelman has left some of his wife's things untouched. The "Happy Room," which she filled with objects from Disney World, is filled with memorabilia, and Ruchelman still has Carole's car.

And he has pictures from the trip down to the Andes Mountains that outnumber the ones he took of the accident.

"It was a start of what was supposed to be a wonderful trip," Ruchelman said.