Bus victims still critical

Press, 23 October 1989, Page 8

Bus victims still critical

NZPA-AAP Brisbane Two of the survivors of Australia’s worst bus disaster in almost 50 years were clinging to life yesterday in the Royal Brisbane Hospital. " A hospital spokesman said Angela Ormesher, who lost five family members in the tragedy, was still “dangerously ill,” while Yvonne Bradford remained in a “dangerously ill but stable condition”.

“There’s been no change (in their condition) overnight,” she said.

Mrs Ormesher was one of 20 people injured in the pre-dawn collision involving a Sunliner tourbus and a semi trailer early on Friday on the Pacific High-

way near Cowper in northern New South Wales.

Another 20 people died in the smash.

Earlier police reports said 20 died and 22 were injured. The police and hospitals yesterday could not explain the reduction by two in the number injured in the latest figures. The Grafton police said 16 people, including Mrs Ormesher and Yvonne Bradford, remained in hospitals in N.S.W. and Queensland. Four had been discharged.

Mrs Ormesher lost her two teenage children, and. her brother-in-law, his wife and their teenage son in the tragedy. Mrs Ormesher’s husband,

Colin, aged 49, was taken off the critical list at Lismore Hospital last night.

The bodies of the 20 crash victims were transferred from Grafton to Sydney’s City Morgue on Saturday and police are expected to name some of the dead today. The police said they were still endeavouring to identify many of the dismembered bodies and were experiencing difficulty in contacting the relatives of the deceased. Australia’s worst accident involving a bus happened on May 8, 1943, near Wodonga on the Victorian border with NSW. A bus carrying soldiers and servicewomen was hit by a train on a level crossing, killing 25.