Girls injured in school bus crash - 3rd March 2004
More than 20 teenage girls on an ice-skating excursion were injured when a school bus, five cars and a truck carrying highly-flammable liquid collided in western Sydney.
The bus slammed into the back of a truck carrying a full load of the liquid acetone about 12.30pm (AEDT), on the busy Cumberland Highway at Smithfield, the fire brigade said.
Firefighters said it was extremely fortunate none of the forty 200 litre drums of acetone ruptured.
About 40 year 11 students from Fairvale High School in suburban Fairfield were returning from an ice-skating school sporting event at the time of the accident.
Twenty-five people were taken to four different western Sydney hospitals, with most suffering cuts and abrasions and complaining of neck and back pain, an ambulance spokesman said.
The most serious injury suffered was a broken leg.
The ambulance spokesman said most of those injured were schoolgirls aged between 15 and 17.
It was believed three of the injured were adults, but it had not been established if they were teachers or people from other vehicles.
A NSW Department of Education spokeswoman said trauma counsellors had been brought in to help students.