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HomeUK NewsBus roof torn off after crashing into bridge, children 'seriously' injured

Bus roof torn off after crashing into bridge, children ‘seriously’ injured

Three children have been seriously injured, and over a dozen more are hurt after a double-decker school bus crashed into a bridge in Hampshire

The roof of the school bus was ripped off after it crashed into a bridge on Well House Lane in Winchester while it was taking students to their third day of the new school term on Thursday morning at the Henry Beaufort School.

Hampshire Police, who were called to a “serious collision” at 8.10am, said: “A school bus collided with a railway bridge causing significant damage to the top of the bus.

Inspector of Hampshire Police’s roads policing unit, Andy Tester, said that a further 57 children who were present on the Stagecoach South bus, as well as the driver, were unhurt.

roof torn off after hitting bridge, leaving children 'seriously' injured
An image from the scene of the crash

The bus operator said that an investigation was under way. No arrests have been made.

“Three students with serious, but not life-threatening injuries, have been taken to hospital. A further 13 students with minor injuries have been dealt with at the scene.”

This comes after the EU has said that it has “serious concerns” about the UK’s move to override key parts of the Brexit withdrawal agreement deal.

Jake Coates, 14, a student from the school, who was on the vehicle, said that the bus driver took the wrong turn “because it was running late”.

Jake said that the double-decker school bus was being driven by a new driver and “came this route today because it was a couple of minutes late, it might have been 10 minutes late, so it took a different… tried to take a shortcut, which didn’t go well.”

There was screaming, he said, after the collision, and “everyone was panicked, shaking, shocked… it was quite scary. I didn’t know if anyone was still inside the bus, trapped.

“A lot of people were screaming, they were shouting like they were going to die, a lot of dust came through as if the bridge was going to collapse,” he added.

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The bus driver reportedly told the children to stay in the vehicle, but a woman who was passing by, stopped her journey to get on the bus, telling the students to get out of the double-decker, he added.

“When we got out of the bus, I could see people jumping out of the back windows and workers from nearby were catching people.”

Jake’s mother, who he said is a nurse, was “helping someone who had a bad cut on their forehead”.

This comes after a ban on gatherings of groups of over six people within homes, parks, pubs and restaurants throughout England is being imposed by Prime Minister Boris Johnson in the biggest COVID-19 crackdown since the nation-wide lockdown rules were eased.

The mother said she was relieved when she realised that Jake had not been injured in the crash and added: “The children were sat on the side, obviously quite upset, crying, bleeding.”

“I went to another girl who was bleeding from the head and I stayed with her.”

“It was quite a shock, quite upsetting. There was a lot of crying, wandering around, trying to get hold of their parents and the school, and checking an ambulance had arrived.”

She added: “Obviously it shouldn’t have happened, they have single-deckers that use this route.”

Caroline Coates, aged 43, said that she and her husband ran to the scene to help when they heard the crash.

Eve Cooper
Eve Cooper
I've been writing articles and stories for as long as I can remember and in the past few years I've had the fortune of turning that love & passion for writing into my job :)

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