An eleven-year-old girl saw her thirteen-year-old brother
killed on Monday, when their school bus collided with a tractor.
Tomas Ryan-Vig from Bicester, ten miles north of Oxford, was
among 38 pupils travelling home in a convoy of two coaches. Paramedics described the scene at a sharp bend near Bicester
as “devastation – it was carnage. There were children
lying all over the place and they were very distressed.”
They claimed it was a “miracle” that injuries were not
more severe. There was an attempt to resuscitate the boy but he
was prounced dead at the scene. One other student had to be airlifted to hospital and 21 more
slightly injured pupils were treated at the John Radcliffe in
Oxford. The tractor and the bus drivers were unharmed. Kate Harper, Tomas’ former headteacher at St Mary’s
RC primary school, which his sister still attends, said, he was a
“very able, sporty boy with a very special sense of
humour.” The Blessed George Napier School, where Tomas was at school,
has held a special assembley as a mark of respect and to help
surving pupils come to terms with what happened. Some pupils are
currently sitting their GCSEs. The school has written to the exam
board asking them to take the crash into account.ARCHIVE: 4th week TT 2004
Bus disaster kills boy
