Our long journey
Next morning we drove up through the mountain passes and had breakfast on a cliff top looking back over the valley and all of the vineyards (Oh yes, this is where we called our friend Liz from on her 30th birthday. That’s old - a real chikamoo!). 
Driving on through some great mountain passes full of winding roads and sheer drops a few feet from the car and the most amazing scenery was fabulous. However, these winding roads were a stark contrast to the miles and miles and miles and miles (you get the picture) of straight roads that we followed as we headed for Graff Reinit in the middle of SA. Things couldn’t have been better. We were having a fantastic day, until we came over the brow of a hill.
The sight that greeted us was unreal, a minibus (the size of a large transit van) with trailer had swerved across the road, flipped over several times throwing people out of it’s now shattered windows, and come to rest in a field on our side of the road. We have travelled in this kind of vehicle loads during our time in Tanzania and the sight of this accident was all the more frighting with the knowledge that this could have happened to us. As we drove up we could see that there were a few people helping, but there was no ambulance. The accident had happened literally a minute before we got there. Getting out of the car and walking toward the crash site I suddenly had the most overwhelming sense of being totally useless. What should we do? Where should we start? Who should we help? Who could we help?
As we got nearer to the site the true size of the accident really kicked in. The bus had been carrying about 25 people, a large proportion of these had been thrown from the doors and windows as the bus had rolled. There were two people who I think must have been caught under the bus as it flipped as they were already dead, thier bodies twisted horrifically. We noticed two girls that must have been thrown from the bus as it first left the road as they were 30 feet away from where the bus came to rest. We went over and started to talk to the older girl (aged 15 and called Porcha) as the younger girl (aged about 4) had some talking to her already. We had a look at her injuries and were shocked by what we saw. She had been thrown from the bus with such force that when she hit the ground her thighs had shattered, the waste band on her jeans had split, along with a large proportion of the rest of her jeans. I have never seen denim torn in such a severe way. After she had hit the ground she had slid off the road across gravel which had taken the skin off one side of her back until she went over a jagged rock which had gouged a hole in her lower right back 10” long 2” wide and about 2” deep. She was in absolute agony. We stayed with her until the ambulance arrived keeping her conscious and holding her hand in a desperate attempt to help her with the pain.
I then went to help the ambulance men move other casualties into the ambulance, while we were putting someone in the ambulance the person next to us died. As more ambulances turned up I went back to see how Porcha was and noticed that the smaller girl was on her own and had stopped moving and was hardly breathing. I immediately called for help, a paramedic rushed over started swearing and she was rushed away. Although she had had an initial treatment and assessment she had been forgotten about due to the shear size of the carnage.
While talking to Porcha we found out that she had been traveling on the bus with her mother. No one had left for the hospital at this point and her mother had not been asking for her. Trying not to sound too concerned we asked what her mother was wearing. It was at this point that the full horror struck us, her mother was lying about 10 feet away but Porcha was unable to see her as she was lying behind her. Her mother had been alive when we arrived but had died while we were there from internal injuries. There was nothing anyone could have done. We told her that her mother had probably been taken to hospital in an ambulance and luckily Porcha didn’t see her body as she was being taken to an ambulance.
After helping for about an hour and a half there was nothing more we could do; the area needed to be cleared by professionals and the final walking wounded were making their way to ambulances.
Driving onto the town we checked into our accommodation and went to a place called the valley of desolation. It’s a valley that has the most amazing rock formations and looks very beautiful as the sun sets. It felt very strange just to carry on with our journey having seen such a horrific accident, but I suppose life goes on and we did the best we could. It has however given us a renewed respect for people in the medical profession!
Driving on through some great mountain passes full of winding roads and sheer drops a few feet from the car and the most amazing scenery was fabulous. However, these winding roads were a stark contrast to the miles and miles and miles and miles (you get the picture) of straight roads that we followed as we headed for Graff Reinit in the middle of SA. Things couldn’t have been better. We were having a fantastic day, until we came over the brow of a hill.The sight that greeted us was unreal, a minibus (the size of a large transit van) with trailer had swerved across the road, flipped over several times throwing people out of it’s now shattered windows, and come to rest in a field on our side of the road. We have travelled in this kind of vehicle loads during our time in Tanzania and the sight of this accident was all the more frighting with the knowledge that this could have happened to us. As we drove up we could see that there were a few people helping, but there was no ambulance. The accident had happened literally a minute before we got there. Getting out of the car and walking toward the crash site I suddenly had the most overwhelming sense of being totally useless. What should we do? Where should we start? Who should we help? Who could we help?
As we got nearer to the site the true size of the accident really kicked in. The bus had been carrying about 25 people, a large proportion of these had been thrown from the doors and windows as the bus had rolled. There were two people who I think must have been caught under the bus as it flipped as they were already dead, thier bodies twisted horrifically. We noticed two girls that must have been thrown from the bus as it first left the road as they were 30 feet away from where the bus came to rest. We went over and started to talk to the older girl (aged 15 and called Porcha) as the younger girl (aged about 4) had some talking to her already. We had a look at her injuries and were shocked by what we saw. She had been thrown from the bus with such force that when she hit the ground her thighs had shattered, the waste band on her jeans had split, along with a large proportion of the rest of her jeans. I have never seen denim torn in such a severe way. After she had hit the ground she had slid off the road across gravel which had taken the skin off one side of her back until she went over a jagged rock which had gouged a hole in her lower right back 10” long 2” wide and about 2” deep. She was in absolute agony. We stayed with her until the ambulance arrived keeping her conscious and holding her hand in a desperate attempt to help her with the pain.
I then went to help the ambulance men move other casualties into the ambulance, while we were putting someone in the ambulance the person next to us died. As more ambulances turned up I went back to see how Porcha was and noticed that the smaller girl was on her own and had stopped moving and was hardly breathing. I immediately called for help, a paramedic rushed over started swearing and she was rushed away. Although she had had an initial treatment and assessment she had been forgotten about due to the shear size of the carnage.
While talking to Porcha we found out that she had been traveling on the bus with her mother. No one had left for the hospital at this point and her mother had not been asking for her. Trying not to sound too concerned we asked what her mother was wearing. It was at this point that the full horror struck us, her mother was lying about 10 feet away but Porcha was unable to see her as she was lying behind her. Her mother had been alive when we arrived but had died while we were there from internal injuries. There was nothing anyone could have done. We told her that her mother had probably been taken to hospital in an ambulance and luckily Porcha didn’t see her body as she was being taken to an ambulance.
After helping for about an hour and a half there was nothing more we could do; the area needed to be cleared by professionals and the final walking wounded were making their way to ambulances.
Driving onto the town we checked into our accommodation and went to a place called the valley of desolation. It’s a valley that has the most amazing rock formations and looks very beautiful as the sun sets. It felt very strange just to carry on with our journey having seen such a horrific accident, but I suppose life goes on and we did the best we could. It has however given us a renewed respect for people in the medical profession!
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