This was an ordinary Tuesday morning; the bus was chugging along at a steady pace. The fumes of the old engine polluting the senses, nose burning, and throat cut by the deadly toxic. We were sat in the wrong place; we were at the front and downstairs, what was going on. We were like little year sevens, anxious to get to school on our first day. But this was just an ordinary day. People around me were listening to music, gossiping about what was happening at school, and making last dash attempts to do homework before we arrived. But somehow today seemed... different. I zoned out from my surroundings completely, the only thing I notice is the bus driver, he seems to be sweating and shaking with panic? We approached the next stop, but we weren't slowing, in fact we seemed to be gaining speed. We just passed the stop, the look on the faces on the students at the stop told me that something was wrong, they weren't pointing at the bus driver; they were pointing at the bus and the spark flying up outside the window!
As students noticed the sparks and the obvious mechanical failure, our failing brakes; mass panic engulfed the bus, our community of a calm bus disappeared. Student's screams pierced the air, shrieking and shouting as we hurtled along to 'certain death'. We were fast approaching the cross roads, the lights were red, traffic was freely flowing from the opposite road and we were heading straight into the middle of it. To make matters worse a convoy of quarry trucks were passing through and they would still be passing through we did. Everyone braced as we awaited the inevitable...
Then it hit! The truck had smashed into the side of our bus, carrying our bus sideways off the road, ploughing into the old stone wall, the only thing stopping us plunging into the nursery. It held; we were saved and so were the children. Tension rebuilt as, one by one, bricks fell away and the bus teetered on its side, threatening to fall sideways, endangering the many nursery children in the impact zone. Nobody dared to move; but we had a plan, one by one, children crawled to the side of the bus trying to balance us out. Slowly the bus emptied upstairs, ensuring we were no longer top heavy, so that we were flat on the road. Still leaning to the side where the truck hit, still in place, the mangled heap of metal kept us up, stopping our bus falling sideways. However in this state we were trapped, on one side we were trapped by the crumbling wall, and if we tried to get out the other side, the truck blocked us downstairs and upstairs we would have to jump and we would land on the burning sharp carcass of a truck.
We were in a terrible state, trapped by all exits, with an engine leaking flammable fuel and a burning truck just metres from the spillage, it could cause the fuel and our bus to be ignited at any time. With fatal injuries and the half an hour it would take for the first emergency services to arrive, time was one thing we did not have. How were we to escape? There was no way out? We were surely dead?
As students noticed the sparks and the obvious mechanical failure, our failing brakes; mass panic engulfed the bus, our community of a calm bus disappeared. Student's screams pierced the air, shrieking and shouting as we hurtled along to 'certain death'. We were fast approaching the cross roads, the lights were red, traffic was freely flowing from the opposite road and we were heading straight into the middle of it. To make matters worse a convoy of quarry trucks were passing through and they would still be passing through we did. Everyone braced as we awaited the inevitable...
Then it hit! The truck had smashed into the side of our bus, carrying our bus sideways off the road, ploughing into the old stone wall, the only thing stopping us plunging into the nursery. It held; we were saved and so were the children. Tension rebuilt as, one by one, bricks fell away and the bus teetered on its side, threatening to fall sideways, endangering the many nursery children in the impact zone. Nobody dared to move; but we had a plan, one by one, children crawled to the side of the bus trying to balance us out. Slowly the bus emptied upstairs, ensuring we were no longer top heavy, so that we were flat on the road. Still leaning to the side where the truck hit, still in place, the mangled heap of metal kept us up, stopping our bus falling sideways. However in this state we were trapped, on one side we were trapped by the crumbling wall, and if we tried to get out the other side, the truck blocked us downstairs and upstairs we would have to jump and we would land on the burning sharp carcass of a truck.
We were in a terrible state, trapped by all exits, with an engine leaking flammable fuel and a burning truck just metres from the spillage, it could cause the fuel and our bus to be ignited at any time. With fatal injuries and the half an hour it would take for the first emergency services to arrive, time was one thing we did not have. How were we to escape? There was no way out? We were surely dead?