Miracle among the mess of twisted metal of Latrobe bus crash

Tag : Metal Glass

A MATTER of timing was the difference between a frightening crashand a full-scale disaster on the Princes Highway.
"Thank Christ it wasn't a couple of hours earlier. The buswould have been full of schoolkids," said the principal of oneof the car yards on the outskirts of Traralgon.
About 11am a loud bang stopped salesmen, tyre kickers andsecretaries in their tracks.
Then came the tinkling of glass followed by muffled screams andyelling.
The first on the scene saw a bus wedged 3-4m into the tray of asemi-trailer.
The semi had just collected a big advertising sign with two hugesupport structures from a Toyota dealership 100m back down thehighway.
The Toyota sign was loaded on the centre of the trailer, with oneof the supports on either side.
Police, ambulance, SES and CFA crews were confronted by a scene of mayhem.
One of the steel supports on the back of the semi had speared intothe passenger compartment as the bus crumpled under the trailer.
The bus driver was trapped but he told rescuers to concentrate onthe passengers.
His front-seat passenger was jammed under the trailer, pinned bythe twisted bodywork of the bus and the massive triple axles of thetrailer.
He was conscious and talking to emergency crews as they worked forthe next three hours to get him out.
The SES and CFA took to the side of the bus with cutting gear andthe jaws of life, peeling away the windows and side panels to apoint about halfway along so they could get other passengers out.
In the middle of the twisted steel, shattered glass and tornaluminium, there was a miracle as a young mother walked out withher baby.
She was cut and shaken, but her baby was unscathed.
Also helping was off-duty paramedic Linley Jones.
"I saw the accident and stopped with my baby and offered tohelp," she said.
Once the injured people were freed work started on clearing thehighway.
The semi had just pulled out of a car yard and was gathering speedusing a turning lane before merging with traffic in the 80km/hzone.
The bus was already in one of the two through-traffic lanes, on itsnormal route servicing towns of the Latrobe Valley.
The bus and the truck should never have come together. Somehow theydid, and once the wreckage was cleared investigators stepped in tofind out why. Share this article What is this?