‘We will all know someone, once we hear names’
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.
"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.
A few hundred yards away, a cottage was turned into a makeshift hospital 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.
Father David O'Hanlon, a curate in Kentstown, said distraught families had flocked to the crash scene in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy.
"People are very shocked they have been saying very little," he said. "Naturally, it's very hard to know what to say. It is an appalling scene really."
He said many of the children were in hysterics as they waited for up to an hour to be freed from the wreckage.
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 that her best friend was in a critical condition in hospital.
"It is hard to put into words how we feel."
