Children in coach crash
More than two dozen schoolchildren escaped serious injury today when their coach left the road and crashed into a garden wall on its way to a college near Stafford. More than two dozen schoolchildren escaped serious injury today when their coach left the road and crashed into a garden wall on its way to a college near Stafford. Seventeen youngsters were tended at the scene by paramedics, mostly for minor injuries and shock. Nine of them had to go to Staffordshire General Hospital for further treatment. The accident happened on the B5027 Stone to Uttoxeter road at Coton, near Milwich, at about 8.50am when the coach failed to negotiate a left-hand bend. Read the full story in the Express & Star
Seventeen youngsters were tended at the scene by paramedics, mostly for minor injuries and shock. Nine of them had to go to Staffordshire General Hospital for further treatment.
The accident happened on the B5027 Stone to Uttoxeter road at Coton, near Milwich, at about 8.50am when the coach failed to negotiate a left-hand bend.
It had been picking up local children, all believed to be under the age of 16, to take them to Denstone College, near Uttoxeter.
One eyewitness described the youngsters as remaining calm as they filed off the bus, some with bloodied noses, and congregated on a nearby car park.
Mr Joseph Ledger, whose home is on the bend, was just getting dressed when he heard the crash.
"I looked out of the window and saw that it was a bus full of children and phoned the emergency services," he said.
"Their reaction was fantastic, police cars started arriving almost as soon as I had put the phone down and within minutes it seemed like we had every ambulance and fire engine in Staffordshire here."
Mr Ledger, aged 81, said there was no sign of panic among the youngsters as they got off the bus and gathered on the car park of the former Wheatsheaf pub.
"Some of the girls were crying and there were one or two bloodied noses," he said. "But everyone seemed quite calm.
"And it didn't seem very long before parents were arriving on the scene to collect the children and take them home."
Mr Ledger, a retired design director from Royal Doulton, has lived in the cottage alongside the B5027 at Coton, for 25 years and is no stranger to accidents there.
"The first was about 20 years ago when a car left the road and ran into my garage causing £10,000 damage.
"After that I had a crash barrier built along the garden wall but there have been about another 11 accidents or more since then," said Mr Ledger.
"I think the speed limit on the stretch is far too high and I have complained to the council about it. Sixty miles per hour is far too fast for what is really just a rural lane."
By Tony Raba
