Hunter Valley bus crash: How two junior patrol officers were first on the scene ... trends now
Two junior cops who stopped for a roadside mid-shift coffee break on a quiet Sunday night would minutes later be the first two people on the scene of Australia's worst bus crash in decades.
The pair had pulled into a service station at Greta, near Singleton in the NSW Hunter Valley about 11:30pm on the foggy winter night.
As they drove back out onto Wine Country Drive they were confronted with a scene of devastation they had trained for but hoped never to encounter.
A white bus they had seen drive by the petrol station not five minutes earlier was on its side at the edge of a roundabout, the front windscreen smashed out and its headlights piercing through the fog.
Passengers, who had been at a wedding that afternoon, had already managed to crawl out, at least one by smashing a window, and were wandering the edge of the road in a daze.
Two junior highway patrol officers were the first on the scene of the horrific Hunter Valley bus crash
The two patrol officers, neither of whom had attended a 'major trauma event' before, sprang into action by shepherding the survivors to safe areas, setting up exclusions zones and assessing and relaying the scene to base, reports The Daily Telegraph.
By 11:40pm two more highway patrol cars were on the scene followed by a general duties car, ambulance officers and an off-duty paramedic who stumbled across the scene.
Six helicopters, 11 ambulances and three ambulance rescue units were dispatched to the scene.
There were soon more than 30 paramedics at the crash site along with fire crews, police, and other medical experts.
Running on adrenaline they assessed each passenger - discovering four had already died from crush wounds - and triaged the survivors.
One man they found was pinned under the bus but was still alive.
NSW Fire and Rescue crews used twin-tonne airbags to raise the wreck before securing it with wooden blocks and pulling the man free.
NSW Ambulance Inspector Joel de'Zuna, a paramedic with 18 years experience, was among the first wave of responders.
On his way to the crash site he was told by the dispatcher: 'We've got multiple passengers, up to 40. There are people trapped under the bus.'
He asked how many triple-zero calls there had been, hoping one might be some kind of mistake or exaggeration.
'Multiple calls,' they dispatcher told him.
Once at the scene he helped
