WORST SYDNEY BUS ACCIDENT ON RECORD KILLS FOUR

Wanganui Chronicle, 31 May 1949, Page 5

WORST SYDNEY BUS ACCIDENT ON RECORD KILLS FOUR

More Than 30 Hurt: Those Aboard Mainly Women And Children

SYDNEY, May 30 (Rec. 8 pm).—Four women were killed and more than 30 people were injured in the worst bus smash on record in Sydney.

A double-decker bus, carrying mostly women and children, crashed through a fence and plunged 40 feet into a gully at the northern approach to the Spit Bridge, north of Sydney.

Bight 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 the Manly wharf to the suburb of St. Leonards, and was negotiating difficult hairpin bends in the road which leads down from Balgowlah heights to where the Spit Bridge crosses an arm of Sydney Harbour. It tore through a light fence and crashed on its side among dense lantana 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 its crushed-in roof, with men, women and children endeavouring to crawl out through shattered glass and torn metal. Many were trapped inside and were 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 whoi fought their way into the wrecked' bus and dragged out the injured. j Three women were killed instantly. The bodies of two were recovered in | a few minutes, but nearly an hour: elapsed before the others were ex- |

| tricated. While ambulances raced to I the scene the victims were taken ; from the wreckage and laid out on I bus seats, coats, and in mud among I the thick undergrowth. The more I seriously injured were given emerI gency dressings and carried up the >: gully to ambulances as they arrived. 1 ‘ Orders given by police, ambulance 1 and tramway men engaged in the rescue work were interrupted by screams of women and children returning to consciousness. Residents broke up ■ packing cases which ambulance men made into splints for those with broken limbs. ’ Ono passenger said: “One minute I 1 was sitting in a seat on the upper dock looking out across the panorama 1 of the middle harbour and the next 1 we seemed to take off I had a conI fused impression of scenery rolling up ' past me and then I awoke lying hero 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 i to the scene of the crash .and warned rescuers to extinguish cigarettes as j the wreckage was deluged with petrol, i One of the four women killed was expecting twins, and was on her way ito hospital in th e bus.