Mandeville, Manchester -The remains of the Toyota Hiace bus on board the flatbed of the wrecker (truck) resembled used, discarded paper – all bunched up, torn and crumpled.

And as curious onlookers gathered at Prospect on the Montpelier main road on the south Manchester/St Elizabeth border in late morning yesterday for one last look at the dismantled vehicle, the wonder was that no one had died in the accident – at least up to then.

“Mi can’ believe sey nobody nuh dead,” one woman proclaimed loudly.

Police confirmed last night, that the driver of the bus which plied the Alligator Pond to Mandeville route, 38 year-old Hugh Hamilton of New Bolbec District, and 12 passengers (described by locals as mostly students on their way to high schools in Mandeville) were injured when the bus travelling north towards Gutters collided with a wide-bodied, Euclid haulage truck, travelling south.

Hamilton and three of the passengers were admitted to hospital in serious condition, police say. The others were treated and released. Their names were not released by the police.

Locals pointed to a narrowing of the road on a bend, 30-40 metres north of the turn-off to the private road to the Alpart (bauxite/alumina) plant as the scene of the disaster.

Tyre marks high up on the left-hand bank (going north) showed clearly how the bus driver sought desperately to escape the huge oncoming vehicle.

But there was no escape. The right wheels of the broad, towering truck rolled over the right side of the bus, flattening it.

“As you can see the road right there is only about six metres wide and the truck is over four metres across,” said Corporal Henry Page of the Manchester police accident reconstruction unit.

There was speculation that most of the passengers got away without life-threatening injuries because they scrambled over each other to the left-hand side of the bus when they saw danger looming.

“Give thanks seh a GSAT day, otherwise the bus wouldda ram, full a pickney a go school and nuff a dem wouldda dead,” said Theodore Marshalleck, a resident of Prospect.

The GSAT exams for primary school children took place on Thursday and yesterday. Only those primary school children doing tests went to school on the two days.

Debate raged as to why the drivers of the two vehicles failed to see the other in time to avert danger. Especially since the haulage truck, in line with traffic regulations, had a pilot ( a pick-up van).

The official police report cited an allegation that the mini-bus driver disobeyed a signal from the pilot to stop.

But locals claimed the pilot was too far ahead of the truck – in excess of 60 metres they claimed – to have done anything to prevent the accident. In fact, they said, the pilot had already turned right unto the private road to Alpart when the accident occurred.

“Dat a foolishness you can’ travel so far ahead when you a pilot vehicle,” one man claimed to general assent.

-myersg@jamaicaobserver.com