Second school bus crashes into bridge and rips off roof hours after Winchester collision
The incident comes just hours after several children were injured in a school bus crash with a bridge this morning.
A second school bus driver has crashed into a bridge and ripped off the vehicle’s roof in one day.
The double-decker bus collided with a low arch in Frogmore Street, Bristol, at around 4.10pm. The driver was the only person on-board, and is not believed to have been injured.
The crash happened just hours after a school bus carrying several children crashed into a bridge in Winchester this morning just after 8am, with the roof similarly ripping off.
Three pupils from Henry Beaufort School were rushed to hospital, although none are reported to have sustained life-threatening injuries. Thirteen others were treated for minor injuries.
Paul Stoodley, 47, witnessed the Bristol crash, which happened outside the Queenshilling nightclub where he works.
He said of the incident: ‘I saw it approach the bridge and thought “this is not going to go well”, but the driver carried on anyway. It just about got under but then it got stuck and whole roof came off.’
Another witness Conal Dodds watched the incident from his office. He told Bristol Live: ‘Thankfully there was just the driver on board. He was okay, just shocked.
‘The roof is completely off the bus, all the upper deck windows smashed and out on the road. The bridge took the full impact so the police and fire brigade closed Park Street as soon as they arrived.’
He added that the incident was the ‘most drama there’s been on Park Street for months’.
The bridge and surrounding roads were closed due to the incident and a structural engineer is expected to inspect the damage before it can reopen.
In Winchester, the school bus had collided with a railway bridge more than 70 pupils on-board. All students involved in the crash were aged between 11 and 16.
Jake Coates, 14, who had just been picked up by the bus, said the driver had taken a shortcut because the service was running 10 minutes late.
He said: ‘‘When we got out of the bus, I could see people jumping out of the back windows and workers from nearby were catching people. It was quite scary, I was really shocked, I didn’t know if anyone was still inside the bus, trapped.
‘A lot of people were screaming, they were shouting like they were going to die, a lot of dust came through as if the bridge was going to collapse.’
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