{"id":18579,"date":"2012-12-10T16:20:32","date_gmt":"2012-12-10T21:20:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=18579"},"modified":"2012-12-10T16:20:32","modified_gmt":"2012-12-10T21:20:32","slug":"driver-of-church-bus-involved-in-fiery-accident-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=18579","title":{"rendered":"Driver Of Church Bus Involved in Fiery Accident Dies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>BY IRIS B. HOLTON<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Sentinel City Editor<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>The driver of a church bus <\/strong>died on Friday at a local hospital. Last Monday, December 3<sup>rd<\/sup>, the Florida Highway Patrol investigated an accident involving a church bus. The bus crashed into a wall and caught fire while on Interstate 4.<\/p>\n<p>The bus, which belonged to First Baptist Church of College Hill, was traveling eastbound on Interstate 4 in the center lane. The driver, <strong>Martin Rufus Silas, Jr.,<\/strong> of Seffner, lost control of the bus due to a medical emergency.<\/p>\n<p>The bus veered to the left, then to the right before colliding with a crash attenuator, located near the entrance of ramp to the eastbound Florida Department of Transportation weigh station. After the collision, the bus caught fire and was partially burned.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mr. Silas <\/strong>was transferred to the hospital, where he was admitted. His daughter,<strong> Ms. Becky Silas, <\/strong>said her father was never discharged from the hospital and died on Friday.<\/p>\n<p><strong> Mr. Silas was raised and educated in Chicago, Illinois. After serving a stint in the U. S. Army, Mr. Silas relocated to Tampa.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>He served as an educator in the Hillsborough County School District for 35 years.<\/p>\n<p><strong> Mr. Silas <\/strong>was a member of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc., and a longtime member of First Baptist Church of College Hill.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to church, he was a die-hard Bucs fan and enjoyed church and traveling. He is survived by 4 adult children, seven grandchildren, other family members and friends.<\/p>\n<p>Wilson\u2019s Funeral Home is in charge of handling arrangements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BY IRIS B. HOLTON Sentinel City Editor The driver of a church bus died on Friday at a local hospital. Last Monday, December 3rd, the Florida Highway Patrol investigated an accident involving a church bus. The bus crashed into a wall and caught fire while on Interstate 4. The bus, which belonged to First Baptist [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18579\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}