BUS CRUSHED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22835, 20 March 1936, Page 10

BUS CRUSHED

REMARKABLE ACCIDENT A man was crushed to death and three others were injured in a bus accident at a swing bridge at Inchinnan, on the Greenock-Renfrew road, near Glasgow, recently. _' The bridge, which spans the River Lart, was being raised to permit the passage of a small steamer along the river, and the gates across the roadway were closed. A Scottish Motor Traction bus skidded on the frost-bound road when the driver applied his brakes and crashed through the gates as the weight, which serves as a counterbalance, when the bridge is raised was descending. The vehicle was, trapped under the counter-balance, which is in the form of a heavy roller. The passengers in the bus were nl* workmen employed by the India Tyre Company, whose factory is only a hundred yards from the scene of the accident. The dead man, John M’Dermott, of Cl Meadow road, Partick, Glasgow, wag pinned down inside the bus and crushed. The other passengers scrambled through the broken roof of the vehicle, but James Mardo M'Kenzie Wood, the conductor, Alexander Rass, and Joseph Henry M‘Henry, all of Glasgow, were injured. The bus had swung/broadside across the road after its skid, and it was the rear of the vehicle which jammed beneath the descending roller. The bridge keeper in his control cabin was not aware of the accident, and the bridge continued to rise, with the result that the roller continued to crush the bus. The passengers, who scrambled through the roof, were not aware that M'Dermott was still inside.

In the meantime a man who was passim: climbed to the cabin and informed the attendant. It wag only when the police were making inquiries that M'Dermott was discovered lying under the smashed woodwork of the bus.