Injured man in bus crash killed while rescuing passengers - In a tragic sequence of events, an injured bus crash victim who was helping....

Injured man in bus crash killed while rescuing passengers
By CHAN LI LEEN
lileen@thestar.com.my

POH: In a tragic sequence of events, an injured bus crash victim who was helping other passengers was himself killed when a container lorry smashed into the stalled vehicle.

Sahad @ Shariff Md Din was earlier travelling with his family and other passengers when the bus they were in crashed into a lorry.

The 74-year-old who was helping the injured victims was flung into a ravine and killed when the stalled bus got hit a second time at KM341.9 of the North-South Expressway near Bidor by a container lorry.

Mangled wreckage: An expressway staff and a tow truck worker checking the damage on the bus near Bidor Sunday.

His daughter, Hasni Sahad, 47, said: “I was looking for my children when a container lorry crashed into the rear of the bus.

“I shouted out to my father to get away from the wreck but when I turned around, he was nowhere to be seen. One moment he was helping others to get off the bus and in the next, he was gone,” she said.

Hasni, a telephone operator with The Star in Penang, was travelling with her parents, sister, two children and some friends from the island to Nilai yesterday.

“It was supposed to be a fun trip. Instead, we had to watch father die.”

Words of comfort: A policeman keeping a victim company as firemen fight to free her from under the wreckage of the express bus at KM341.9 of the North-South Expressway Sunday.

Hasni said the bus was badly damaged. “I was thrown to the floor while my parents were hit by luggage from the overhead compartment,” she related.

Hasni said passengers were trying to get to safety when the container lorry, which was transporting paper reels, rammed into the bus.

Tapah OCPD Superintendent Roslan Bek Ahmad said it took Fire and Rescue Department personnel over an hour to free three victims trapped in the mangled wreck.

“Six passengers who suffered serious injuries have been taken to hospitals in Tapah, Teluk Intan and Ipoh while two others who sustained slight injuries received outpatient treatment at the Tapah Hospital.”