'I thought it was the end'
2006-01-08 22:31
Jeffreys Bay - Three people, among them a baby, died and 25 were injured in another bus accident in the Eastern Cape on Sunday.
A Translux bus under way from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth overturned on the R102 between Humansdorp and Jeffreys Bay in pouring rain on Sunday morning.
It seemed as if the driver had lost control over the bus after crossing the two-way stop between Humansdorp and Kabeljous. The bus overturned and landed on its right side.
Inspector Marianette Olivier, police spokesperson, said the accident happened about 04:45 shortly after the bus had stopped at Humansdorp to drop off passengers.
Olivier confirmed that the driver, 50, who lived in Durban and whose name has not yet been released, died after he had been flung through the windscreen.
Hysterical crying
Nineteen-month-old Phoebe Barry, who was on her way home to Grahamstown with her mother, Ms Barry, also died in the accident.
An unknown woman who would have gotten off at Butterworth, was the third victim.
Twenty-five passengers were taken by ambulance to Humansdorp Hospital for treatment.
Eighteen of them had suffered only slight injuries, while another seven were admitted to hospitals.
One of the injured women had lost a leg.
Donovan Jordaan, 27, was sitting on the upper deck on the righthand side of the bus.
His girlfriend Bernadette Mapoe, 23, and her cousin, Chevandre Mapoe, 9, were seated behind him.
"The bus moved to the wrong side of the road, hit the gravel and then swerved sharply. It landed on its right side. When we overturned there was terrible screaming and I thought it was the end," Jordaan described the nightmare.
He said he carried Chevandre, who had suffered deep cuts to his head, and with Mapoe, climbed over the chairs and jumped through the broken windscreen. Chevandre had to remain in Humansdorp Hospital.
Travis Pitout, 20, from Somerset-West, and Emiel Liebenberg, 23, from the Strand, were on their way to a Christian camp in East London.
Both were members of the Baptist Church in Somerset-West and had to undergo training to become preachers.
Pitout, who was clearly shocked and had to get stitches under his left eyebrow, said he was dozing off when he felt the bus sliding over the road and overturning.
"My friend and I managed to escape through a small gap between the bus and the road," he said.
Liebenberg said total choas reigned after the accident and some passengers were crying hysterically.
Liebenberg said the magnitude of the tragedy hit him only in hospital and that he had lost consciousness at one stage. "I could feel the Lord's pain for the dead people, but I know that He has a plan with everybody's lives."
Another passenger, Moganathan Gounden, 29, said, "I was sleeping when the accident happened, but remember waking up when I was tumbling through the air.
Carl Newman, senior manager of Autopax Passenger Services, the company that runs Translux, said a representative of the company was at the accident site on Sunday to determine the cause of the accident.
Police have not yet determined the cause of the accident, but were investigating culpable homicide.