Eight persons managed to escape with their lives on Friday night after the bus they were travelling in toppled a few times after being hit by another vehicle.
The accident occurred around 10:30pm and involved a Route 48 (Sophia) bus and a Rav-4.
According to eyewitness accounts, the bus had been heading west along Garnett Street at a moderate speed when it was hit suddenly by the Rav-4. Eyewitness-es told this newspaper that the Rav-4 had been heading south along Middleton Street at a very fast rate and failed to stop at the intersection. The driver of the SUV was a young woman.
“She just jump and lash the bus,” one man angrily told Stabroek News.
All of the passengers were thrown out of the bus on impact. The bus toppled and finally came to a stop several feet away.
A passing vehicle stopped and rushed the injured persons to the Georgetown Public Hos-pital (GPH). The driver of the Rav-4 was unharmed.
When Stabroek News arrived at the scene of the accident, a fire truck was on site along with several police officers. A large crowd had gathered and angrily berated the female driver, who stood with the officers.
At the GPH, three of the more seriously injured patients were still awaiting medical attention. Several of the other passengers had already left the hospital.
“We were driving normal; we weren’t going fast or anything,” a completely bloodied Ryan Pires, 20, said from his wheelchair. He went on, “Soon as we cross over the corner… this big impact just come on the bus. I don’t even know if I pitch out the bus or if someone took me out of the bus. All I know, I get up on my foot and I see the bus toppled like a turtle on its back. The whole back bus was smashed in.” At the time of the accident, Pires had been in the front seat of the bus.
Another patient, Nadia Prince, 25, was unable to speak. She too was in a wheelchair and had been given a neck brace. The other patient, a teenaged girl, had been trapped in the bus and had reportedly lost four teeth. According to reports, she and her mother had been picked up shortly before the accident on Garnett and Sheriff Street.
A man, who took the injured passengers to the hospital, heavily criticised the GPH for its treatment of them. According to the man, the persons had been treated with disregard as attendants took a very long time to deal with them. “The sad thing is when we took the people to the hospital, up to when we leave 20 minutes later no doctor came out to look at the people. They just there saying they had to wait their turn,” the man said.
Pires also berated the service and noted that he was hardly attended to. Though he was in pain, he said that he was not given anything to deal with it. However, he said, he was thankful for life.
Both drivers were taken to the Kitty Police Station after the accident.
