[Article] Bus victim saved child with last act

Victor

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2091-1070110,00.html

Bus victim saved child with last act
Dearbhail McDonald and Siobhan Maguire

A MAN whose wife was killed in the Dublin bus crash has told for the first time how she threw herself in front of the bus to save their daughter as it ploughed into the queue.

As the state bus company braces itself for a flood of compensation claims from survivors and relatives likely to amount to many millions of euros, James Gilton, a father of two from Maynooth, Co Kildare, described how his wife Kathleen and daughter Nuala, were queuing for a bus after a day in the capital when tragedy struck.

“Nuala was at the bus stop with her mother and they were waiting to get their bus home,” said Gilton. “In that split second, my wife threw herself in front of our daughter and she was knocked to the ground and killed. My daughter suffered horrendous injuries but her life was saved because of what her mother did.”

Gilton said his life is “in tatters” since the accident on February 21, which killed five people and injured 17 when the bus mounted the pavement at Wellington Quay.

Nuala Gilton, who has Down’s syndrome, is still being treated in the burns unit at St James’s hospital and is unable to speak about what happened. “I pray for things to get back to normal. My daughter is still in hospital. I have lost my wife, and my two daughters, who have Down’s syndrome, have lost their mother and there is nothing anybody can say or do to make things better.” Gilton said he was too upset to even think about legal action.

The bus company is facing a series of claims from other families affected by the crash. The accident was the worst in the history of Dublin Bus, a subsidiary of CIE. Fourteen compensation claims are already being examined. The company’s claims department is also preparing to compensate the families of the five people who were killed, and expects to be sued for post-traumatic stress disorder by survivors.

The families of the victims have not yet received an explanation for the tragedy. The bus was out of service and had been parked on Wellington Quay behind the No 66 bus, which was picking up passengers travelling to Maynooth. According to some witnesses, the out-of-service bus cut in on the No 66 on the inside, mounting the pavement and ploughing into passengers. Three women and two men were killed.

A garda investigation culminated last weekend with the arrest of the driver of the out-of-service bus. Detectives, working with engineering experts, have ruled out technical faults or mechanical failure. The married father of two initially told detectives that he could not remember what happened. He was questioned for 12 hours last Saturday but was released. The director of public prosecutions will decide whether he should face criminal charges, which could include dangerous driving causing death.

The file includes statements from survivors and witnesses who have described the carnage in detail. Sarah McNamara, from Leixlip, Co Kildare, another victim of the crash, was on her way home to celebrate her 21st birthday party when the accident happened. She had just had her make-up professionally applied in town before she went to get the bus home to prepare for her party. That is the last she remembers.

“We are just glad that she is home and safe at last,” said her mother. “I don’t think any of us can imagine what she has gone through. I think she wants to try and put all of this behind her and concentrate on college.”

A detective investigating the case said: “They didn’t realise the danger they were in. They expected the bus to stop, and when they realised it wasn’t going to, tried to save each other and push people out of harm’s way. It is a miracle that more people weren’t killed.”

A senior claims manager with CIE said: “We are prepared for some of the worst-case scenarios we have dealt with in a very long time. We are used to handling claims for post-traumatic stress in fatal and multi-fatal accidents, or in instances when somebody may have witnessed a suicide near station tracks. To witness something horrific can seriously affect a person’s life, and you can’t put money on that.”

The cost of the claims is expected to be met by the company’s insurers. Dublin Bus is covered for claims arising from a single accident in excess of €2m. Actuaries are currently assessing the potential exposure. A €579,000 award to a former bank executive injured in a car crash two days after the crash, gives an indication of the size of the claims.

Victor

Anonymous wrote on 12-04-2004 13:33 by Private Message:
I'm afraid to ask in public in case it sounds insensitive but are Dublin bus likely to claim that that woman was partially to blame for her own death through that selfless act? ie she could have saved herself but deliberately chose not to. Could they argue that at that precise moment nobody knows for a fact whether or not her daughter would be killed or injured?

No, heroism is specifically covered by insurance. It would be wholly wrong if someone were held responsible for their own injury while saving another. In a socially "selfish" way it is better to have someone take some risk saving another, rather than leaving the other die unnecessarily. It's quite possible she would have died anyway. In any case, Dublin Bus has effectively admitted liability (publicly, not necessarily legally).