Nine left hurt after collision between car and school bus

NINE people, including seven children, were taken to hospital yesterday after an accident between a school bus and a car.

The crash, which occurred at Ardvarna, Lisnagry, Co. Limerick, was reported to emergency services at 8.15am yesterday.

The 28-seater bus, contracted by Bus Éireann from a private operator, collided with a car at a bend.

One of the bus passengers, a child, managed to get out of the vehicle and run a mile to a house to raise the alarm, a source said last night.

The bus had been ferrying children to St Mary’s Secondary School in Newport, Co. Tipperary.

Two people travelling in the car were cut from the wreckage by firefighters. The driver and passenger of the car, along with the six schoolchildren and the bus driver, were all taken to hospital.

Of the six injured children, one has a suspected broken jaw; another has a suspected broken arm; and four have cuts to their head, said a source.

One local man described hearing ‘a loud bang’ at the scene of the crash.

Kevin Cusack, principal of St Mary’s School, said the pupils who had been hurt were ‘in good spirits’ after their ordeal. Students and their parents had been offered support services.

He said the children had praised the bus driver’s handling of the incident after the collision.