Alma Rivera's childhood ended the day she and other frantic schoolchildren were jostled and thrashed inside the Shuttlejack bus that careened down Hyde Park Road from the Santa Fe ski area, crashed into the mountainside and landed on its side.

For a 12-year-old girl, the tragedy was an early lesson in neglect and irresponsibility. The March 2, 1999, crash that killed two people and injured more than 30 children, including Rivera, ignited public outrage after it became clear faulty brakes were to blame.

Shuttlejack owner Ray Sena had political clout across New Mexico, and federal inspectors said his company ignored doing routine maintenance work.

Ten years later, people who lost the most — a childless mother, a widow and even Sena, who forfeited his business and went to prison — still don't wish to reflect in public. But other families say they deal almost daily with physical pain and emotional fallout from that day, while current and former community leaders say they learned valuable lessons about how tragedy can panic a community, how neighbors prop each other up and how public institutions must respond to a community in need.

Rivera still sees lessons to be learned. "It took me a long time to trust adults again," she said.

The 22-year-old now has a child of her own while attending The University of New Mexico, where she's a senior majoring in education. She's also working for state House Speaker Ben Luján this legislative session. The crash has made her extra cautious for her nearly 2-year-old son, Alejandro, and she never stops thinking about her childhood classmates.

"I think in the last 10 years, my goal has been for healing, both for me and the rest of the victims," Rivera said. "It stays with me in that it has been the most traumatic and tragic experience in my life."

Natasha Garcia missed out on much of the horror, having no memory of what happened between the crash and when she regained consciousness seven days later in a hospital bed.

Even the parts she remembers have become fuzzy over time, but events changed the way she — and many others involved — went on to adulthood.

Heroes and healing

It all began on the return trip from a day of ski lessons on the slopes, when the driver of Shuttlejack bus No. 504, Robert Heusner, announced, "Hold on. We have no brakes."

"We were coming down and I remember the bus driver was panicking before we hit the guardrail," said Garcia, who was seated on the left side of the bus near the front. "I just remember the bus was out of control."

The crash killed 11-year-old Eric Garcia and 44-year-old Gary Apodaca, who were both ejected from the bus.

Rivera, who was a Tesuque Elementary sixth-grader, said Apodaca calmly directed students as the bus descended about a mile and half down the road after the brakes failed, fishtailing on the gravel shoulder at each curve. She had fallen asleep in the back of the bus when a jolt hurled her into the aisle, knocking the wind out of her. Another girl broke her nose and was bleeding, she said, as others yelled for the driver to stop, with some thinking he was drunk.

Rivera said Apodaca stood and braced himself at the front of the bus and told the children to put their ski bags on top of their heads and to put their heads between their legs. "Gary Apodaca was a hero for many people," Rivera said. "There were many other children that maybe would have died."

Rivera said her brother, Ramon Rivera, now a 20-year-old junior at UNM, pulled her and other children from the wreckage.

The crash had knocked her unconscious, and she came to during her ambulance ride to what is now Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center, which released her at 1 a.m. because of a room shortage, even though she suffered a concussion, a broken ankle and arm, and a bruised pelvis.

Natasha Garcia spent several weeks in intensive care at the hospital with head fractures, and a broken pelvis and jaw.

In the next room over lay fellow Larragoite Elementary student Tomas Apodaca, Gary's son.

"It was horrible," said Garcia's mother, Elaine Garcia. "I mean, you go through it, and I don't think it really hits you until it's over and she's home. You just don't have time to focus on what's happening at the time."

"We don't talk about it at all," Elaine Garcia added. "It's just negative and it's been awhile. We just let it go."

Natasha Garcia, now 20 and working as a model, said she still feels soreness in her bones when it's cold or she's exercising. But she has moved on, she said. She attended Santa Fe Community College before giving birth to a son, 18-month-old Jordan, and plans to return to school and seek a psychology degree.

Peter Nolan, 20, was a Gonzales Elementary fifth-grader sitting in the third row of the bus when it toppled. Some of the benches disengaged and crushed his face, requiring him to endure more than three years of reconstructive surgery. He has lasting effects from the crash, according to his mother, who declined to be specific.

"I think it affects our entire family," Beth Nolan said, before pausing a moment. "It's amazing how quickly it brings emotions to the surface. We just went through a lot of years that were challenging. ... It was a long odyssey for us."

The Nolans moved to the Philadelphia area after Peter completed sixth grade and his father had taken a job there, but they continued their regular trips to Dallas for Peter's surgeries.

"He's a very tough kid with a great heart," Beth Nolan said. "One of Peter's greatest concerns was not so much for himself but for his friends from Gonzales," many of whom were also injured.

In eighth grade, Peter received an American Legion award for patriotism. After high school, he turned down a four-year college scholarship to join the Marines, a lifelong goal. He is now stationed in Japan.

Angelique Arellano was supposed to be on that bus, and she and a friend had briefly shared a seat inside it when an adult wrongly told them they were supposed to be on another bus. Her bus was following bus No. 504 when she heard a loud echo.

"I'm very thankful that somebody made that mistake," the 20-year-old said.

In two lines, she and her fellow students held hands as they walked past the crash scene, over blood and broken glass and past rescuers who held up blankets and jackets to shield the kids from the dead and injured. She and her classmates were led to another bus to get down the hill. When she reached the Fort Marcy complex, where parents had gathered, she was met by her family's looks of grief and then elation. It turned out her name had wrongly been put on a list of the critically injured.

Arellano, who is working toward a degree in business administration at Central New Mexico Community College, hasn't skied since the tragedy. "It's more terrifying than anything for me because it just brings back those memories," she said. "It was a long process."

Santa Fe police had recruited her father, Mark, to help direct traffic at Washington Avenue and Artist Road because he was wearing a badge from his security job at the Palace of the Governors.

"I thought I lost my daughter for awhile there," he said. "The ambulances were coming down and I was trying to look in and see if my daughter was there."

Rescue efforts flustered police officers and deputies who found their radios useless because of the terrain, forcing them to repeatedly drive up and down the mountain to relay messages.

"Of all the places in Santa Fe County that that could've happened, that was the worst," said Deputy Police Chief Benjie Montaño, who was county undersheriff at the time. "It took us forever to get a list of who was on the bus, who was taken to the hospital," he added.

Police Sgt. Kyle Zuments, who rushed to the crash, called it the worst day of his career. "It was worse than getting shot," said Zuments, who took a bullet in his Kevlar vest during a high-speed chase in 2007. "It was the closest thing to a war zone I have ever seen."

Zuments had to wrestle down a parent who tried to get to the crash scene. "And I don't blame him," he said. "I would have done the exact same thing if my kids were on that bus."

Zuments recalled TV footage of himself holding his radio up like the Statue of Liberty, struggling to get a reception. He was also among the rescuers who shielded kids from seeing the bodies.

"Basically, it sticks with me because I felt helpless," he said. "I'll never forget Eric Garcia. It was just a hell of a day."

If anything similar happens again, Zuments said, he's prepared to call an acquaintance who has a reliable satellite phone.

Larragoite secretary Cheryl Archuleta was stationed at the hospital, to learn which students were taken there and to report to the principal waiting at Fort Marcy. Her job included identifying Tomas Apodaca, who was seriously injured.

"It was terrible because you saw those kids, the emergency room was packed that night, and they had kids everywhere with all kinds of injuries. Some had broken legs," she said. "It was a very long night."

The National Transportation Safety Board determined the brakes on the bus were faulty, with only about a 12 percent "total braking efficiency." Mechanics told the board the company had no routine maintenance program.

In the aftermath, Heusner and his wife divorced and, according to his ex-wife, he moved back to his native Belize. "He had a hard time dealing with it," said Anna Heusner, who lives in Santa Fe.

For the families of Eric Garcia and Gary Apodaca, the recovery process is ongoing and something they try to keep private.

Eric was Pauline Chavez's only child. "I'm still a mom that's mourning her son," she said during a brief interview, saying she often tries to get out of town when the anniversary rolls around. "There's not one day that goes by, you know — I still run into his friends. To this day, I still break down. It's taken me a long time to come to where I'm at right now."

Soon after the crash, Larragoite Elementary named its gym after Eric Garcia, and a framed photo of the boy hangs on a wall. Recently, the school dedicated its new courtyard to Gary Apodaca.

Cathy Apodaca said she found discussing her years since the crash too painful. Her husband was 44 at the time and just months away from retirement at the state Transportation Department. "It just brings everything back," she said. But she said she takes pride in her three sons, including her oldest, 21-year-old Tomas, who has recovered from his injuries. He is majoring in exercise science at UNM and hopes to become a sports trainer.

Crash fallout

Efforts to reach Ray Sena have been unsuccessful. He hasn't returned a note left at his southeast Santa Fe home, and family members have not returned phone calls.

People who know Sena but declined to be identified said he underwent heart transplant surgery in Dallas and just returned from a three-month stay there.

Sena, 61, had deep political connections at the time of the crash and had served as the state's Democratic Party chairman. Soon after the crash, it was revealed that other buses in his fleet also had brake or mechanical problems. Critics charged that state regulators ignored complaints about his operation because of his connections.

It took six years from the time of the crash before state regulators tightened the rules affecting buses. In 2005, the Public Regulation Commission required commercial passenger vehicles to increase their liability from $1 million to $3.5 million, said Ron Martinez, PRC Transportation Division director.

The increase was a result of the Shuttlejack crash and has motivated companies to become more vigilant about maintenance and driver responsibility, Martinez said. He said the PRC inspects buses at least once a year.

Sena served more than two years in prison and was released in 2005. Under his plea agreement, Sena pleaded guilty to all counts against him, including involuntary manslaughter, attempted child abuse resulting in death, attempted child abuse resulting in great bodily injury and 26 counts of child abuse.

A civil court settlement in 2001 awarded the families of Gary Apodaca and Eric Garcia a combined $8.6 million — 60 percent of the $14.5 million agreement. The other 35 plaintiffs agreed to amounts ranging from $54,000 to $1.6 million. Heusner, who was also injured, received about $74,000. Insurance companies representing Shuttlejack paid $7.5 million, the Santa Fe Ski Co. contributed $4.6 million; the state of New Mexico, $1.05 million; the Santa Fe School Board, $1.05 million; Wells Fargo Equipment Leasing Inc., the owner of the bus, $315,000; and Marge VeneKlasen, coordinator of the ski program, $10,000.

Fallout from the crash created a division within the school district. Donita Sena, who was to be picked school board president on the night of March 2, instead went to Fort Marcy with other board members. In the following days, she said, a split formed between district administrators and the school board over addressing an outraged public.

"I think the community wanted to hear from the school district on where we were on the issue," said Donita Sena, who is not related to Ray Sena. "The district was adamant to say they were not responsible."

Although the buses in the ski program were privately owned, the board also undertook an inspection of the district's own fleet.

Ten years later, Donita Sena said, "I think we all learned not to take certain things for granted. Business relations need to be business relations and looked at thoroughly, to make sure the busing system is safe."

The experience certainly made the Nolans more cautious. After the family moved to Pennsylvania, Peter was again scheduled to go on a class ski trip. This time his mother inquired about that bus company's safety record with the school and federal officials.

"I don't know, I guess we as parents could have had more due diligence, but we trusted the school," Beth Nolan said of the Shuttlejack tragedy. "Had I not gone through this, I obviously wouldn't have done this. It was a matter trust. I think it eroded that trust a little bit for us."

Contact Doug Mattson at 986-3087 or dmattson@sfnewmexican.com.