Heidi Rokobuli felt a sense of impending doom when the terrified driver looked over at her and said, “there’s nothing else I can do!”
Almost instantly, Mrs Rokobuli knew the bus, packed with more than 70 children, was going to crash.
Mrs Rokobuli was the only parent travelling in a bus operated by Classic Buses Ltd with 76 Delana Primary School students when it flipped over on its side in Lautoka on Wednesday afternoon.
Later, at the city hospital that evening, a shoeless Mrs Rokobuli, who suffered a small gash to her forehead and was covered in her children’s blood, spoke to this newspaper about her near-death experience, about what happened on a hill on Banaras’ Ajodhya Prasad Rd, and about how easily the kids’ lives could have been snuffed out in that one frightful instant.
“The students knew immediately something was wrong and started screaming and crying. I screamed as loud as them to stay calm, to get down on the floor.
“But before we could react, the bus had swerved and landed on its side.”
In the ensuing chaos, all Mrs Rokobuli could hear was the horrifying sound of panicked children crying.
“The first child I focussed on was a young girl, she had lost a hand and was losing blood, so I carried her and tried to get her out first.
“Then I came back for my daughter who had a head injury and then my son.
“I called out to him but he had lost consciousness.”
Mrs Rokobuli said she was enraged by the response of the driver who she blamed as the cause of the accident.
“I’m the only parent that boards the bus with the children every day.
“The day before (Tuesday), I had argued with the driver on duty about the condition of the bus and how they were carrying just too many students.
“I have never dreamt that something like this would happen to me. Seeing all those kids lying on the ground and crying for their parents is something that will stay with me for a long time.”
