BRONWYNNE JOOSTE
Staff Reporter
A CITY teen has described how he narrowly escaped serious injury after falling out of a moving bus, saying he felt the vehicle’s window giving way beneath him and could do nothing to stop his fall.
James Coetzee, a Grade 8 pupil at Camps Bay High School, said he was travelling home to Hout Bay in a Golden Arrow bus on Monday.
James said he was leaning against the emergency window, directly behind the bus driver, and was chatting to his friends when he realised that the window was starting to give way.
Golden Arrow said the only way the emergency window could have fallen out was if “significant pressure” had been applied to it.
But James insisted that he was leaning against the window while keeping balance by pushing on the bus ceiling.
“The next thing I knew, I was lying face down in the road with glass all around me.”
Fortunately, he had fallen between the yellow lines of the road and was not in the path of oncoming traffic, James said.
His friend Jordan Brocklebank was sitting close by when James fell out of the window.
Brocklebank, who is also a Grade 8 pupil at Camps Bay High School, said
: “We were just coming around the corner and then James fell out of the window. It didn’t even crack, it just fell out.”
James’s mother, Penny Elliott, said: “When I got there, he was lying in a field of glass and someone was holding his head up.”
She said emergency services were on the scene soon after. James was was treated in hospital for mild concussion, a twisted ankle and several scrapes. He also knocked his back and the back of his head.
“This was a freak accident, though there was obviously something wrong with the window,” Elliott said.
She said she had been in contact with Golden Arrow’s legal claims department.
“They said they will be sending me forms, and that I will have to lodge a complaint with the Road Accident Fund. We have spoken to our lawyer and will be taking this further.”
Bronwen Dyke, Golden Arrow Bus Service’s public relations manager, said:
“After thorough investigation it is apparent the only way the passenger could dislodge the emergency exit window and fall out would be through applying sufficient pressure on the window.”
Dyke said the windows were made to necessary “safety specifications” and “do not fall out for no apparent reason”.
“They are designed to give way if significant force is applied and passengers need to escape from the bus.
”