‘It is hard to put into words how we feel’

AS dusk fell, an uneasy silence was restored with the departure of the emergency helicopters. Students who had not been on the bus began to drift towards the place where their friends had died.

“I was told a girl from my class was dead but she isn’t. It’s very sad for the families of the girls who did die,” said 14-year-old Warren Bellew from Beaufort College, Navan.

With him was 16-year-old Paul Flynn.

He knew of the students who were on the bus.

“It’s really emotional just walking up to it (the scene). I knew a lot of those on board and to think some of them are dead. We just met another friend who told us not to come up here, it is too much.”

Local people began to gather in groups as the shocking news began to filter through.

One woman, who knew some of the girls who died, said: “This is just dreadful. It is terrible for everybody here. I drove this road this morning and, I suppose because of that, I knew there were roadworks.”

Last night, the single decker Bus Éireann bus remained on its side, its windows smashed out.

Hours earlier, it was bringing the 51 students home from school.

It is believed the bus swerved to avoid two cars involved in a head-on collision on the road between Navan and Duleek.

It was thrown on its side.

One of the first gardaí to arrive on the scene described what he saw.

“It was total and utter pandemonium with the injured being taken in people’s cars as well as in ambulances to the hospitals.”

A group of council workers, who were surfacing the road only yards from the crash, were quickly on the scene.

They came across dazed and injured students wandering around the roadside.

Some were still trapped on the bus, while others had been thrown through the glass window by the force of the impact.

“There was a lot of roaring and crying. Some of the lads gave them medical tips, and then the ambulances arrived; they were very quick,” said the council worker.

Within minutes, panic-stricken parents parked their cars at the garda cordon half a mile from the crash scene and ran up the road in the hope of finding their child safe and well.

As they raced towards the crash scene the immediate sensory impact was one of noise: a series of ambulances with sirens blaring and lights flashing went in the opposite direction as they headed for Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda or Our Lady’s Hospital in Navan.

A few hundred yards away, a cottage was turned into a makeshift hospital to cope with the wounded, while parents rushed to the scene to attend to their young ones.

Others, less fortunate, were directed to Navan General Hospital in search of their teenagers.

James Murphy, 14, a boy who attends the same school as some of the students on the bus, said he got a call from his friend who was on the bus.

“I was worried about my friend, but he is OK. I got on the phone to him; he was just coming out of Drogheda Hospital.”

However, for other friends and family, the news was far more bleak.

One man, a resident of Navan, said: “It is a terrible tragedy. We will all know someone once we hear the names; they are all local.”

People in Kentstown gathered at the Church of the Assumption last night to light candles for the victims.

Young students hugged each other and wiped tears from their eyes as they emerged from the church.

“It is very worrying,” said one student, who had been told her best friend was in a critical condition in hospital.

“It is hard to put into words how we feel.”