Relatives of Meath bus crash express sorrow for victims

Relatives of the survivors of the Meath bus crash have expressed sorrow for the victims of the tragedy tonight.

Outside hospital tonight, the relatives of the survivors also spoke of their relief.

Five teenage girls were killed today and forty-six people injured when a school bus overturned in an horrific crash.

The bus taking 51 youngsters home from secondary schools in in Navan, County Meath, Ireland, was involved in a collision shortly after 4pm in Kentstown.

Steven Gray, from Slane, County Meath, said his younger brother John had sustained only a suspected broken shoulder and cuts.

“It’s a relief he’s alive,” he said.

“There are so many people dead, and it could have been a lot worse. But you have to think of the five families of the children who died.”

He said that his brother was recovering after x-rays showed no serious head injuries.

Mr Gray said he had told his brother that people had been killed in the crash. “He was shocked.”

He said that John, a 16-year-old student at Beaufort College, remembered the bus being hit by a car and then veering off the road and onto its side.

“He was sitting directly over the side of the bus that was hit. He was one of the first out, and he rang home to say that the bus had crashed,” he said.

Sharon Matthews, 17, spoke outside the hospital about Catriona Dunleavy, 17, her friend and classmate at the Mercy Convent in Navan, who was also injured.

“She’s OK, she’s all smiles and stuff. She has a fairly big gash to her forehead and she’s had stitches,” she said.

She said her heart went out to the people who had been killed and injured in the crash.

“Most of them have cuts and bruises. Another guy had his neck in a support and he looks fairly bad. Another girl broke her leg,” she said.

She added: “There was another guy in there I know, and he’s a bit worse, but hopefully he’ll be OK.”

Students at the four schools attended by victims of the bus crash are to be given counselling tomorrow, while Our Lady’s Hospital of Lourdes in Drogheda is providing accommodation and support to parents and relatives.

Two students at St Patrick’s Classical School in Navan – Shane Finnegan, 18, and Graham Crosby, 17 – said they were due to have been on the bus but didn’t make it because they were studying for their Leaving Certificate – the Irish equivalent to the A Levels.

They said they had known two of the girls who were killed in the crash. They described them as really nice, always cheerful, happy and full of life.