Two critically injured in a bus & truck crash

While I was in England touring the UK, my squad on July 24, 2008 attended a Bus Vs Truck incident on the Princes Highway just before 11:00am. Where a bus ran into the back of a heavy haulage truck,
The BUS driver and one of his passengers were fighting for their lives after their bus collided with a semi-trailer on a major Victorian highway west of Traralgon.
The force of the crash obliterated the front of the bus, which was carrying 17 people including the driver when it slammed into the back of the semi-trailer that morning. "The bus ... appears to have driven over a crest in the road just before colliding with the rear of the slow moving semi-trailer,"
The 28-year-old front seat passenger was trapped for more than three hours in the wreckage of the bus after being pushed back three rows by the force of the collision. He was pinned by his legs and was only freed after the State Emergency Service (SES) crews used cutting equipment and two large cranes were brought into the scene and lifted the back of the semi-trailer. He was airlifted to Royal Melbourne Hospital in a critical condition, with severe leg and pelvic injuries.
The 56-year-old bus driver suffered critical internal injuries to his chest and abdomen and was also airlifted in a second ambulance aircraft to the Alfred Trauma Centre in Melbourne.
All other passengers were taken to the Latrobe Regional Hospital and the driver of the semi-trailer, escaped serious injury.
‘Ambulance Victoria’ Paramedics, Fire Fighters and SES all worked tirelessly to free the bus driver and passenger as their condition gradually grew worse.
The Road Crash Rescue team from State Emergency Service (SES) claimed the operation to free the trapped passenger was one of the most difficult and delicate the SES volunteers had ever had to perform for some 10-15 years. "It was a very horrific crash and it was a very long and very difficult extraction,"

Leo Cartwright
OIC Morwell SES