FOUR WOMEN KILLED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27094, 31 May 1949, Page 5

FOUR WOMEN KILLED

BUS SMASH IN SYDNEY GHASTLY SCENE GREETS RESCUERS NZPA—Copyright Rec. 9 p.m. SYDNEY, May 30. Four women were killed and over 30 people injured in the worst bus smash on record in Sydney. A doubledecker bus carrying mostly women and children, crashed through a fence and plunged 40ft into a gully at the northern approach to the Spit bridge north of Sydney. I Eight ambulances from Manly and seven from the Central Sydney Station sped to the scene, and the victims were rushed to neighbouring hospitals. The bus was bound from Manly wharf to the suburbs of St. Leonards, and was negotiating the difficult hairpin bends in the road which leads down from Balgowiah heights to where the Spit bridge crosses the arm of Sydney HarDour. It tore through a light fence and crashed on its side among dense iantana bushes in thick mud.

Residents who hurried to the scene saw a ghastly spectacle. The bus was lying partly on its side and partly on the crushed-in roof, with men, women and children endeavouring to crawl out through the. shattered glass and torn metal. Many were trapped inside, badly injured and unable to move. One of the first rescuers was a traffic policeman who had been following the bus on a motor cycle. He was joined by several motorists, who fought their way into the wrecked bus and dragged out the injured.

At least three of the women were killed instantly. The bodies of two were recovered in a few minutes, but nearly an hour elapsed before the others were extricated. While ambulances raced to the scene the victims were taken from the wreckage and laid out on bus seats, .coats and in mud among the thick undergrowth. The more seriously injured were given emergency dressings and carried up the gully to the ambulances as they arrived.

Orders given by police, ambulance and tramwaymen engaged in the rescue work were interrupted by the screams of women and children returning to consciousness. Residents broke up packing cases, which the ambulance men made into splints for those with broken limbs.

One passenger said: “ One minute I was sitting in a seat on the upper deck looking out across the panorama of the middle harbour, and the next we seemed to take off. I had a confused impression of the scenery rolling up past me, and then I awoke lying here in the gully.” * A motorist who was following the bus said that it seemed to veer to the left, and then crashed out of control through 30 yards of fence. He raced to the scene of the crash and warned rescuers to extinguish cigarettes, as the wreckage was deluged with petrol.