Bus crash trial is told boy ‘lucky to be alive’

COURT: Witnesses describe how coach went over child who suffered horrific injuries after being trapped under it

“It was like slow motion, like something out of a horror film

A schoolboy suffered horrific injuries after being run over by a bus in a Fife car park, a court has heard.

The child, who was 13 at the time of the accident in February 2017, was trapped under the vehicle’s wheels for more than half an hour.

He suffered broken bones in his right arm and leg and needed five operations, including skin grafts and the insertion of pins into his leg.

One witness said the scene was “like something out of a horror film”, and the boy’s grandmother told Dunfermline Sheriff Court she was warned by medics that he might require “at least one amputation”.

“I can tell you hundreds of things he’s never going to be able to do, but he’s lucky to be alive,” she added.

She was giving evidence at the trial of bus driver John Morrison, 59, of Marmion Drive, Glenrothes. He denies driving dangerously and failing to properly observe the roadway around him in Dunfermline’s Allan Crescent.

A 12-year-old boy was also hurt after being struck by the bus.

The older casualty, who is now 14 and cannot be named for legal reasons, said he was walking home from Woodmill High School with a friend when he found himself under the bus.

Defence lawyer Dana Forbes questioned his claim that he could not remember what happened before the accident, asking if he was “trying to protect anyone”.

The teenager replied: “No. I’m trying to remember what happened.”

Sheriff Charles Macnair told him: “You’ve shown remarkable fortitude. Many people who come before this court would have made much more of a meal of these injuries. You should be proud.”

Removal man Michael Dunster, 21, said he saw the bus ploughing into a group of school pupils moments after parking his van. He estimated it had been travelling at around 10mph.

“It was like slow motion, like something out of a horror film,” he said.

Mr Dunster said Mr Morrison waved him around to the driver’s side of the coach and asked him if the boy was dead. “I said ‘I don’t know’,” he added. His colleague Samuel Melville, 29, said he saw a group of around 10 children walking on the road as the bus approached and that the vehicle only stopped when two boys were under it.

He added: “I was angry, just the fact that he (Mr Morrison) never got off the bus to see what had happened.”

Katie Louise Blackburn, 32, who shouted at the driver to get off after the collision, told the court: “I don’t think he did. I think he was in shock.”

Graham Corke, 50, said he heard “shouting, screaming, commotion”.

“When I saw what had happened, I dived under the bus to have a look at the kid and keep him as calm as I could,” he added.

The trial has been adjourned until August.

csmith@thecourier.co.uk

Police investigators cordon off the scene of the accident in February 2017 in which a 13-year-old boy and another of 12 were hit and dragged under a bus in a car park in Allan Crescent, Dunfermline.