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ATLANTA — The clock is ticking on Zach Arend as he lies in a coma at Grady Memorial Hospital.

Doctors say if he makes it out of the first 72 hours, his odds of survival go up significantly.

It's Saturday, March 3 — 24 hours after the Bluffton bus crash — and Zach has improved his odds. His heart is still beating.

The freshman pitcher has been unconscious since being ejected through a side window of the bus and hurled off the Northside Drive overpass, landing about 10 feet from where the motorcoach slammed into the pavement.

He has severe head trauma, a lacerated liver, a crushed sternum, broken ribs, collapsed lungs and a fractured pelvis. His face is bruised and his lips are severely swollen. Cuts and scrapes mark his entire body.

A week ago, Zach excitedly called home to tell his parents, Dana and Caroline Arend, "I'm going to Florida!" Now he is breathing only with the help of a machine and a tracheotomy tube.

The doctors try to prepare the Arends that things could get worse.

Worse?

Dana was just 13 when he lost his father. He's tried to stay positive since the accident, but one thought won't leave him. Is he now going to lose his 18-year-old son?

Friday, March 2
10:30 p.m.
Fulton County Medical Examiner's office

As the Arends are clinging to hope, Tyler Williams' mother is broken. A day filled with fear, frustration, anger and denial ends with a single moment when Geneva Williams has to confront the unthinkable: Her son is dead.

She first learned about the accident when Tyler's roommate, Curtis Griffin, called with the news that "Tyler's bus has crashed."

Frantic, she called Grady Memorial Hospital, Piedmont Hospital, Atlanta Medical Center. She tried Tyler's cell phone, then called Curtis back. She even called Bluffton University President James Harder.

"Everywhere I called I got a roadblock," she says.

She finally talked to a nurse at Grady. "I am not trying to be funny or anything, but my son is the only black player on that bus," she said. "He is the only one. Is he a casualty or is he there?"

Amid all the casualties and confusion, the nurse mistakenly told her that Tyler was in surgery.

Before leaving on Friday afternoon for the Toledo airport — her first plane trip — the 49-year-old Williams caught a Lima television station report that said four Bluffton players died in the crash.

Tyler's photo was shown as one of the four.

"How can they say that?" she thought. "He's in surgery."

After she arrived in Atlanta, she was rushed to the Marriott Marquis, where the families of the other Bluffton players were staying and where Dr. James Augustine, medical director for the Atlanta Fire Department, pulled her into a room off the hotel lobby. Tyler, he said, died on impact.

He never went to a hospital.

Which is why, at 10:30 on a Friday night, Williams is at the Fulton County Medical Examiner's office.

She wants to see her son.

"You don't want that image in your head," she is told when she inquires about viewing his body.

Instead, she is shown photographs.

They don't look like him.

But they do.

The pain crawls into every part of her body.

Saturday, March 3
11 a.m.
Northside Drive overpass

Against the whipping of the morning wind through an orange mesh fence on the Northside Drive overpass, the parents of the dead Bluffton baseball players are looking for answers.

The National Transportation Safety Board has only started its investigation but is allowing the Bluffton families to view the crash site.

The families of David Betts, Cody Holp and Tyler Williams — three of the four deceased players — are eager to go. Scott Harmon's family stays behind.

With the media watching, parents walk the same road where, just a few hours earlier, Bus No. 2 tore through the safety fence.

"It was very important for Mr. Betts to see exactly where it happened," William Smith, chief operations officer for the Fulton County Emergency Management Agency, recalled later. "You want to know as much as possible how it happened. Personally, I would feel the same way."

Most expect to see damage deserving of such a tragedy. But all they see are a few abrupt skid marks just before a concrete wall marked by scrapes of paint.

"It would be easy to think that something had to happen to that bus driver, like a heart attack," says Jeff Holp, Cody's dad. "I wish they'd come out with something because there's still so much hate with my (other) boys. They've got nothing else to throw it at. To go through all (the posted exit and stop signs), I would have thought something had to happen to him."

Pam Elkins, Cody's aunt, grips the concrete retaining wall to steady herself for a look below. Chemicals used to soak up the spilled diesel fuel have created an almost perfect silhouette of Bus No. 2.

Spots of blood are visible nearby.

She notices chain links dangling from the sheared fence still standing on either side of the gap left by the bus. She picks a piece off the ground and clutches it.

The families came here looking for answers.

They don't find any.

Saturday afternoon
Marriott Marquis

Inside a metal cage in the Marriott Marquis parking garage, families and players dig through piles of diesel-soaked belongings and baseball equipment.

Geneva Williams runs her fingers along the razor-straight brim of Tyler's baseball hat and begins to cry.

"Anyone who knew Tyler knew his baseball caps were his thing," she says. "He would special order them. He'd buy those hats and then go buy himself an outfit to match the hats."

A Red Cross volunteer politely interrupts to tell Williams she might want to leave the hats and have them mailed home. If the slightest hint of diesel permeates through the airport or the airplane cabin, they will confiscate the hats, the volunteer says.

"I'm taking these hats," Williams snaps.

Sunday morning, March 4

Grady Memorial Hospital

Forty-eight hours after the crash, Dana Arend approaches one of the doctors and asks if his son suffered any brain damage from a lack of oxygen.

"When he wakes up, or if he ever wakes up, we'll have a better idea," he is told.

If he ever wakes up? Does that mean he won't?

Caroline Arend rubs and squeezes Zach's hands, staring at his eyelids to see if there is any movement beneath.

She kisses him.

"You're always telling me how tough you are," Caroline tells him over the whoosh-whoosh of the ventilator. "Now show me how tough you are."

Doctors told the Arends that his odds would improve if he made it through 72 hours.

He's got 24 to go.

Sunday afternoon
AirTran Flight 8432

No one on the plane bound for Toledo from Atlanta can possibly know what John and Joy Betts and Geneva Williams are going through.

Unknown to most passengers, the bodies of their sons, David Betts and Tyler Williams, are in the cargo hold being transported to Ohio for burial.

Williams boards the plane holding a garbage bag, tightly sealed and double-bagged to suppress the smell of her son's diesel-soaked hats.

No one can possibly know what they're feeling.

No one except Linda Smith.

Smith, a flight attendant for AirTran, is the widow of Jerry Smith, co-pilot of the Marshall University football team plane that crashed and killed all 75 passengers and crew members aboard in November 1970. She was left to raise an 8-month-old son.

Smith was supposed to be off this weekend but volunteered to work after hearing that her company was offering free flights to those from Bluffton. She wanted to help.

"I understand," she tells the passengers on the flight. "I've been there."

When Karen Klassen Harder, a Bluffton faculty member and wife of the school president, asks for advice, Smith says, "All I can tell you is there is a permanent void in these people's lives.

"After the press and everyone leaves them, don't forget them. Everybody's gone. Either call them or send them a card or do something. They seem to be doing fine, but they're not."

Sunday afternoon
Left in Atlanta

Most of the Bluffton contingent can't get out of Atlanta fast enough. But for the seven still hospitalized, the chance to come home will have to wait.

Other than their family members and a few university officials, the only people from Bluffton remaining in Atlanta are the ones who can't leave.

Head coach James Grandey is in serious condition with a shattered jaw and severe leg injuries.

Kyle King, a sophomore infielder from Dover, is in fair condition with a broken back.

Tim Berta, the senior student assistant coach from Ida, Mich., is unconscious and in critical condition.

Mike Ramthun, the sophomore from Springfield who had his leg pinned under the bus for 45 minutes, is close to being released. Remarkably, he has no broken bones.

Zach Arend, the freshman pitcher from the Paulding County town of Oakwood, is approaching the 72-hour window doctors say is crucial to his survival.

His seatmate, Will Grandlinard, a freshman pitcher from Berne, Ind., has had his condition upgraded to fair despite a severely lacerated liver.

Assistant coach Todd Miller is about to be released from the hospital, probably owing his life to the Northside Drive retaining wall that caught him and three others.

"It's just hard to think how being thrown from a bus traveling at 60 to 65 miles per hour is a good thing," his father Jeff marvels.

For two days, Jeff and Debbie Miller have stood by their son's bed, staring at his heavily bandaged head stabilized by a neck brace. He has two broken vertebrae near his neck, a gash just above his ear shaped almost like a half moon, and a heavily stitched-up ear. He also suffered a severe concussion. Since the crash, Todd has been in and out of consciousness, waking suddenly and — just as quickly — falling back to sleep.

Today he is fully awake — and asking questions.

One question startles Jeff. His 23-year-old son, he realizes for the first time, doesn't know the full extent of the accident. Doesn't know that four of the players he helped groom for this trip are dead.

After his father breaks the news, Todd repeats each one of the player's names.

Then he breaks down.

Tuesday morning, March 6
Grady Memorial Hospital

Caroline Arend is looking for the right tune.

Not only has her son Zach made it through the 72-hour window, his swelling is subsiding and doctors have temporarily removed his endotracheotomy tube to clean it. Caroline can see, for the first time, that all of Zach's teeth are intact. In her words, he is looking "normal" again.

At times it even looks like he is trying to open his eyes.

Clinically, Zach is doing better, but the doctors want to test his progress. They give him a "holiday" — a break from sedation — for about an hour.

The doctors tell Caroline that music might be soothing to him.

After a few minutes the perfect song comes to mind.

In a soft voice she starts to sing: "Take me out to the ball game, take me out with the crowd. Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack. I don't care if I never get back ..."

Tuesday afternoon
Hartman Sons Funeral Home, Columbus Grove

During the past five days, it's been easy to blame Jerry Niemeyer for the fatal crash.

Given what happened, Chuck Niemeyer would understand if not a single Bluffton player, coach or official shows up at his brother's wake. He would understand if the entire Bluffton community stays away.

But they don't.

Among the mourners filing in to pay their respects to Jerry and Jean Niemeyer are Bluffton shortstop Ryan Baightel, university President James Harder and other players and coaches.

They've come to support the driver of the bus that crashed and caused so much misery.

In past trips to Florida, the Niemeyers often would eat and play miniature golf with the team.

Jerry would even sport a Bluffton hat, a gift from a player.

Some of the parents blame Niemeyer for the crash. The Niemeyer family is enormously grateful that not everyone does.

"We know Jerry made a mistake," Chuck says. "He probably should've seen the exit sign. For everyone to be so gracious ... it's really had an impact on us."

Wednesday morning, March 7
Elida High School Fieldhouse

Scott Harmon and Tyler Williams grew up in different worlds, 10 miles apart.

Elida, where Scott was raised, is a white middle-class suburb of 2,000 people with a strong passion for high school sports.

Tyler's neighborhood on the east side of Lima is neither white nor middle class. An empty lot sits next to the house Habitat for Humanity built for Geneva Williams, and sheets of plywood cover the windows of a house across the street. Economic hardship is more visible here than in Elida. Even the churches have a worn look.

Scott and Tyler came together in life when both attended Bluffton University to play baseball. And in the week after the Bluffton bus crash, they came together in death. Their funerals are held one day apart.

The line of visitors at Elida's fieldhouse stretches out into the frigid cold. Some are coaches, family and friends. But most are teenagers who wear a palpable expression detailing their first brush with death.

Geneva Williams is burying her son tomorrow. She has a million things to tend to and doesn't know why she is here.

But she can't stay away.

A day later, at her son Tyler's service in a packed Philippian Missionary Baptist Church in Lima, the Rev. Robert Toney notes the healing power two local boys had on a community long divided by race.

"Tyler and Scott brought black and white together, brought a whole community back together," Toney bellows from the pulpit. "That's saying something for Lima."

At each funeral during this difficult week, something poignantly unique emerges about each player.

At David Betts' service in the Bryan High School gymnasium, a single piece of bubble gum speaks a silent eulogy.

David used to umpire in the Bryan youth leagues, where foul balls can be redeemed at the concession stand for bubble gum. When he ran out of baseballs during a game, the crowd urged a boy to toss one back to keep play going. At the end of the inning, David sought out the boy, gave him the ball and told him to get his gum.

Days before the funeral, the Betts family received a letter from a youngster.

Inside was a piece of gum.

They put it in David's coffin.

Before Cody Holp's funeral in Lewisburg, his dad, Jeff, and his two brothers, Austin and Gaar, bought matching tailored suits. Knowing how Cody would have wanted them to keep it "country," they walk into the church wearing Tri-County North baseball caps.

Earlier, Austin drove to the church for a private moment with his little brother. Cody's casket will be closed during the funeral, but it is left open for family members beforehand. Knowing how proud Cody was of his curly locks, Austin begins to massage gel into Cody's hair. As he's driving home, he calls his father.

"Dad, I'm getting your steering wheel all messed up. I gelled Cody's hair," Austin says. "I don't want to wash my hands, Dad."

"Get that steering wheel as sticky as you want to," Jeff tells his son.

The funeral services all contain positive messages, yet there is something else present that the families can't shake: heartbreak.

Before Tyler Williams' coffin is closed, his mother stares at his body, dressed in a new Atlanta Braves jersey that was sent by Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin.

Geneva Williams doesn't speak. Just stares.

After the funeral, she walks in the front door of her house and makes it about 12 feet to the hallway leading to the bedrooms where she sees a pile of laundry.

The clothes are Tyler's, piled just as he left them.

She collapses next to her son's dirty clothes.

Friday morning
Kettering Medical Center

By week's end, all but three of the injured Bluffton players are back in Ohio. Mike Ramthun is walking up the steps for a checkup at Kettering Medical Center when he catches the tail end of a conversation among two strangers heading the other way:

"Another Bluffton player died," Mike hears.

He rushes to a waiting room as fast as his injured hip will allow and is crushed as the news begins to flash on CNN.

Zach Arend is dead.

Mike just saw him before leaving Atlanta. He thought he was going to make it.

The entire Bluffton contingent did.

Unknown to most of the players, Zach's health began to deteriorate on Thursday, and doctors were doing bloodwork on the hour. In the wee hours of Friday morning, the Rev. Kevin Peek, a priest at Blessed Trinity High School in Roswell, Ga., who had periodically been looking in on the injured player, stopped by Zach's room.

"Father Peek, why are you here?" Caroline Arend asked, shocked that he would be up at

2 a.m. "Did someone call you?"

Nobody had, but the priest, on his way back from Birmingham, Ala., told the Arends they should give their bodies a rest and get some sleep at their hotel. He'd stay with Zach and pray with him, he told the exhausted parents.

Just before 6 a.m. he called the Arends' hotel room: "You need to get back here right away."

Zach Arend died at 6:30 a.m., almost a week to the minute after the Bluffton bus crash.

When she regains her composure, Caroline Arend calls her parents, who are en route to the hospital.

"Zachary," she says, "is in heaven now."

March 20
Bluffton University

Less than two weeks after the crash, Bluffton President James Harder starts talking with players and coaches about getting back on the field.

There are hurdles.

Gone are Zach Arend and Cody Holp, starting pitchers in a four-man rotation. David Betts was supposed to start at second base and Tyler Williams in center field.

Scott Harmon was going to be a stop-gap third baseman.

And then there are those who physically can't play, such as infielder Kyle King and pitcher Will Grandlinard.

Student assistant coach Tim Berta is still in the hospital and head coach James Grandey just got out. Assistant coaches Jason Moore and Todd Miller are still healing from concussions, broken bones and loss of memory. Mike and A.J. Ramthun are believed to be out for the season.

Ninety percent of the team's equipment was lost in the crash.

For the school, the question isn't so much "do we want to play?" It's "can we play?"

Then, in one of the many kind acts Bluffton has experienced, the baseball community responds.

The Cleveland Indians send balls and other equipment, as do the Cincinnati Reds. The Florida Marlins send baseball gloves, and Nike agrees to donate new jerseys.

Most of the victims' families say their children would want the Beavers to take the field.

There are other whispering signs. Mike Ramthun and sophomore pitcher Tyler Hill are heading to campus one day when they spot a lit dorm window amidst all the darkened rooms.

It is Cody Holp's room.

For some reason, they feel he is speaking to them.

"It was like he said, 'Hey guys, I'm not here, but I'm here,' " Mike would say later.

On March 20, the Bluffton team — some still bandaged and bruised — stands in front of a sun-kissed Sears Field as President Harder says two words that start the healing process:

"Play ball."