BUS CRASH.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 158, 5 July 1940, Page 6

BUS CRASH.

22 HURT, ONE KILLED.

SUBSIDENCE OF ROAD. EVERT WINDOW SMASHED. (Special.—By Air Mail.) SYDNEY, July 3. Twenty-two people, one of whom died of his injuries, were badly hurt when * double-decker bus fell eight feet from the high to the low level road in Reynolds Street, Cremorne, and crashed over on its side. The accident was caused by the subsidence of the road three f«et away from a dividing fence and the collapse of a stone retaining wall. The bus was carrying 40 passengere, coming to work in the city on Friday morning, of whom 25 were on the lower deck and 15 upstairs. Every window in the bus was smashed and most of the injuries, were caused by broken glass. Six ambulance cars were hurried to the scene of the accident, and until they arrived the injured, were laid out on the footpath on cushions taken from the bus.

Of many escapes from death, the most remarkable wa» that of Mervyn Taupin, of Belgfave Street, Neutral Bay. Employed by J. Kirkwood, butcher, of Oremorne, he was delivering meat in a motor cycle outfit. He was travelling •long the low-level road when the bus started to topple.

"A huge stone whizzed pest my front wheel," he said. "I looked up and saw the bus falling. I opened the throttle and shot forward, missing death by three feet. The crash wa* terrific. Aβ I pulled up, the cries of hysterical women and frightened children can:e from the wrecked bus. I wrenched open die emergency door and helped out those who were not too badly injured."

The driver of the bus, Frank Warbur ton, said a pantechnicon was drawn up at an angle outside a houee. 'I slowed down to a crawl. Then I felt the offfront wheel sag, and I stopped the bus immediately," he eaid. "I could have unloaded the passengers then, but the rear wheel began to sink. We stayed suspended for about 12 seconds. Gradually the earth gave way and we slid slowly down. I knew a crash must come. The suspense was terrible. I crouched down behind the controls, gripping the steering wheel. Glass showered me wheu we hit the road, and my right hand was cut

deeply. I dorvt remember climbing out. I wfut among , the passengers and made sure that there were no severed arteries. Then I ran to a house and telephoned the ambulance." Girl's Premonition. One of the passengers, Miss Joan Toohey, 24. said later that she had had a premonition that she was going to be involved in an accident. "The whole week was just a series of bus smashes and breakdowns for me," she said. "On Wednesday night I went to see a film, 'Vigil in the .Mglit'—there was a terrible double-decker bus smash in that. On Thursday night I went to a dance at Liverpool for the soldiers. Wβ went up in a double-decker bus. Coming home it broke down in a ditch. After the film I wae terrified that it would topple over. I got home much later than I had ex-pei-ted to be. Because of this next day I missed the usual bus which I catch' in the mornings and caught the later one. I had been in my seat only a few seconds when I realised that the bus was toppling over. It was an awful feeling. The screams of women and children, and the horrible cra«h were really terrifying."