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ONLY ON KIRO 7: soldier talks about deadly I-5 shuttle crash

LAKEWOOD, Wash. — For the first time the soldier badly injured during a deadly shuttle crash on I-5 one week ago talked about the moments before and after the crash.

Sgt. 1st Class Che Pickens said he and others in the 7th Infantry Division had just left Sea-Tac Airport last Thursday afternoon.

Pickens said they picked up six soldiers who had spent five months checking routes for IEDs in Afghanistan.

They were leaving the military and planned to celebrate that afternoon with a welcome home party with their families at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

"It's a very, very happy momentand especially for family members," Pickens said.

"They were there at the battalion classroom, waiting for the soldiers to arrive."

Pickens was in charge of keeping them informed on the status of the soldiers through text messages.

He told KIRO 7 he had just sent a text message when the JBLM shuttle slammed into a concrete barrier on I-5 southbound near Lakewood and took down a light pole.

"There were bags everywhere," Pickens said. "One of my soldiers was on top of me. It was pretty much mass chaos."

Pickens said Reymon Tolentino, a 28-year-old soldier from Illinois who was one of the soldiers still stationed at JBLM, was sitting right behind the driver. He died.

"He was a good soldier," Pickens, who served as Tolentino's platoon sergeant, said.

"In a sense, we're like a parent figure to them and that's show I treat all my guys, as though they're my children... and so it did hurt me when I found out he didn't make it."

Washington State Patrol does not believe the driver of the bus was impaired.

KIRO 7 asked Pickens what he noticed.

"No signs that something might be off?" KIRO 7 asked.

"No signs that anything was off," Pickens said. He said the driver interacted with him normally, asking questions about the directions.

"I have no idea what went on and of course I would like to know what went on," he said.

Pickens has seven broken ribs and a partially collapsed left lung. The 555th Engineer Brigade flew his family in from Houston and Dallas to be by his side in the hospital.

Also by his side: girlfriend Shaneka Phillips, a state trooper who rushed to the scene.

"I was in shock at first," she said.

She arrived at the hospital just before Pickens went into surgery.

Days after the accident, as he recovered in the hospital, he proposed. She said yes.

"It was horrible but at the same time, it really brought all of us together," she said.

Pickens said according to his doctors, his recovery could take anywhere from several months to a year. But he and Phillips said they've gotten a lot of support from the WSP and Joint Base Lewis-McChord, including meals from the 22nd Engineer Company Family Readiness Group and 14th Engineer Battalion Family Readiness Group.