Woman injured after being dragged by bus
By Jeremy SandlerA 76-year-old woman suffered serious injuries after she was dragged and her legs were pinned beneath a TransLink bus Thursday afternoon.
The accident occurred at the curb at a bus stop near Commercial and East Hastings St.
Rachel Weaver, 14, a Grade nine student at Vancouver Technical Secondary, had just left the No. 20 bus heading west on Hastings when she heard screaming.
"I turned around and there was another lady with her hand stuck in the rear door of the bus," Weaver said. "She tried to run along with the bus, but her leg went under the wheel. Her leg got caught under the wheel and it went right over her leg."
The bus dragged the woman approximately 2.5 metres before the bus driver became aware of what was happening and stopped the vehicle.
"Then some guy told the bus driver to back up, and the bus driver actually went the wrong way and went more over her leg," Weaver said. "She was screaming, then it stopped.
"I was just in shock. It was so disturbing. It was kind of like all the fat and muscle in her one leg got pushed to one side and it looked like it exploded. Blood was everywhere."
Emergency crews were on the scene in less than two minutes, but the rescue took about a half hour as the bus had to be lifted with jacks and airbags.
The woman was removed and taken by ambulance to hospital.
Does this seem kind of strange to anybody else? Remember awhile back when I wrote about how some bus driver fell asleep at the wheel and crashed into a street light? Is this some kind of trend? I don't know if I like this trend.....seems kind of gruesome. Are bus drivers being careful enough? I think there should be some hard questions to be answered by TransLink and the driver in question. Whether they will be asked or not is another matter....