Three dead, 35 injured as school bus overturns after collision with car

AT LEAST three people, including two teenagers, have been killed after a school bus crashed in the Lake District yesterday.

Four others were fighting for their lives last night after the bus, carrying pupils from a local school, collided with a car and overturned on the A66 near Keswick, in Cumbria.

Another 35 people less seriously injured were described as "walking wounded" by the emergency services. The coach ended up lying on its side across both carriageways.

The teenagers – a boy and a girl – were aboard a bus carrying pupils home from Keswick High School along the A66. Also killed in the accident, which happened at the Braithwaite turn-off around 3:47pm, was the male driver of a Honda Civic which is thought to have struck the bus as it swerved to avoid another car.

The road was closed to allow paramedics to treat casualties at the scene.

The 49-seater coach, operated by JB Pickthall, had 30 pupils on board. Owner Barry Pickthall said it was carrying out its usual daily run, taking pupils to their homes in Cockermouth after their school day in Keswick, about 13 miles away.

The rescue operation involved six helicopters, six ambulances, rapid-response vehicles, doctors and mountain rescue teams. Those seriously injured were airlifted to hospitals in Middlesbrough, Newcastle and Preston.

Chief inspector Kevin Greenhow, of Cumbria Police, said: "My officers and people from the other emergency services found a very difficult situation to deal with. There were people who have been seriously injured, that was obvious from the outset, and also people suffering from the traumatic effects of what has happened.

"It is too early to say what has caused the two vehicles to collide," he added.

Cumbria County Council said educational psychologists were being arranged to go into the school today.

Brian Lewis, who lives near the scene of the crash, said: "The site of the actual crash is in a hollow. It seems the bus was swerving to miss a car and another vehicle has crashed into it. It was a big crash, a big mix-up."

Motorist Bill Barnes, who was one of the first at the scene, said: "The pupils were amazing in the way they helped each other, and the response of the emergency services was incredible."

A spokeswoman for North Cumbria University Hospitals NHS Trust said the majority of those injured were being treated at Cumberland Infirmary in Carlisle and West Cumberland Hospital in Whitehaven.