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Fiery bus crash kills eight on Interstate 40
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DANDRIDGE, Tenn. (AP) — After the fiery crash of a church bus in Tennessee, Daniel Morrison knew a phone call would be coming.His parents were among a group of seniors from a North Carolina church who had eagerly awaited their big annual outing, a trip to a three-day festival in Gatlinburg, Tenn., featuring gospel singers and speakers.But on the way back Wednesday to Statesville in North Carolina, the church bus carrying the members blew a tire, veered across a highway median and crashed into a sport utility vehicle and tractor-trailer, police said.All told, the wreck on Interstate 40 in northeastern Tennessee killed eight people, leaving the bus on its side next to the tractor-trailer, the wreckage extending across two lanes of traffic and partly into the median. Fourteen others were hurt, two in critical condition.When Morrison was told about the crash, he feared the worst.Then a pastor at the Front Street Baptist Church called late at night and broke the devastating news: His parents, Randy and Barbara Morrison, both 66 and married for nearly 50 years, were dead.His father, who had once worked for a trucking company and his mother, once a school teacher, were gone."I'm still processing it," said Daniel Morrison, one of the couple's five children, pausing to shake his head. He said both had looked forward to the trip, having devoted so much to their church.Morrison said his parents were always there for him - especially after his wife Monica died in December of a brain aneurysm.