Victims wounded in the fatal car crash in Beheira that killed 18 on Wednesday, who were mostly students at al-Orman High School in Alexandria, have given Al-Masry Al-Youm their account of the catastrophic accident.
Islam Mohamed, a first year student, said he was sitting at the bus’s backseat and was able to jump out of the window once he saw the bus caught fire following the collision with the two other vehicles.
His colleague, Mohamed Rafia, said he had sustained breaks in the shoulder and knees after he, too, jumped from the window.
Ashraf Mohamed al-Sheikh, a passanger wounded in the accident accused the driver of the bus, Eid Issa Mahmoud, of jumping off before it collided with the lorry and leaving his passengers behind.
Nusseir Mostafa Abdel Halim, however, said onlookers pulled Mahmoud from his vehicle during the fire, adding that the driver of the bus was speeding when it veered suddenly.
Mahmoud said a trailer truck was passing next to him, trying to get to turn back and take the opposite lane, but instead hit him. Mahmoud, who said he went into a coma following the crash, revealed he had been assigned for the bus only four days earlier.
Meanwhile, Ahmed Mohamed Farouq, another student, said the bus was occasionally breaking down over the past days, and that the driver was overspeeding to make up for being late to picking them up.
Large numbers of victims’ families outside the morgue at the Damanhour Public Hospital failed to identify their deceased relatives whose bodies were completely charred in the fire.
Mohamed Abdel Raouf, a relative to the driver of the lorry that collided with the bus, said though he had identified his cousin’s corpse, his family failed to receive it for burial, adding that fire engines finally came to the site of the accident one hour after the fire.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
