Trigger warning: This is an unpleasant story involving a nasty accident, but we are all ok.

I was walking back home after dropping my younger daughter to school this morning. I was walking down the road and I stopped to talk to my friend on her bike for a few minutes. A bus was coming so my friend moved her bike off the road onto the pavement out of the way while we were chatting, and then shortly after that we said goodbye. She cycled away and I continued walking in the same direction the bus had just gone.

I was looking at my phone but I heard a loud crunch and looked up and saw the bus was turning right onto a side road. Initially thought “what a numpty he’s cut that corner and clipped a car” (I could not see the actual accident from my position as the front of the bus was just out of view round the corner).

I assumed it had hit a car as the crunch was very loud but then someone started screaming so I just ran towards the bus as fast as I could and I shouted to my friend on her bike (who was cycling away in the other direction) to come back and help. I turned the corner and saw a woman right up under the wheel of the bus screaming. I’ve never heard a sound like that before in my life. It wasn’t like the screams in the movies, it was a whole other horrifying sound altogether. I got my phone out and called 999 immediately (I think it was less than 30 seconds from when I heard the crunch to when I started dialling). 

As soon as I got there I was talking to the dispatcher but it was hard to hear because of the screaming, and my friend arrived right behind me so I handed her the phone and told her to talk to the operator and get an ambulance.