Photo courtesy Stephen King
Several passengers on a minibus were injured in a three vehicle collision on Picton Road Bunbury today. The accident happened following a collision between a truck and a utility travelling in the opposite direction.
The accident happened around 3.00pm this afternoon. Following the initial collision, the truck and ute are reported to have crossed to the opposite side of the road and impacted the bus travelling in the other direction. The bus was operated by Morrissey House.
The driver of the bus was thankful that he had time to swerve and avoid a head-on collision, but a side impact was unavoidable despite the bus mounting the footpath. No pedestrians were reported injured.
Witnesses said that only one ambulance attended the accident, and after waiting two hours for assistance, staff from Morrissey House were seen transporting their injured passengers to the Emergency Department at Bunbury Regional Hospital in other vehicles.
It is not clear whether the ambulance officers who attended the scene deemed the bus passengers’ did not require hospital treatment, and simply failed to advise Morrisey staff at the scene that no ambulance would be attending, or if they simply failed to advise ambulance dispatch of the additional injuries. A spokesperson for St Johns Ambulance said there appeared to have been a miscommunication which they were investigating.
While it was fortunate that the bus was being escorted by another Morrisey House vehicle, the expectation that another ambulance would be attending resulted in treatment for the bus passengers being delayed by up to two hours.
At the time of writing, one of those passengers was reported still in hospital.