Forty years ago a group of 78 Busselton Senior High School students along with three teachers and a chaperone set off on an educational excursion to the East Coast during the May school holidays.
Tragically, a bus driver John MacKenzie and two students Tracey Blum and Ann Lloyd were killed when one of buses the group were travelling on overturned injuring another 20 students.
The accident occurred on Mother's Day in the early hours of Sunday May 11, 1980 in Hay NSW and will be remembered by many people in Busselton and Hay for all the wrong reasons.
However, the warmth and compassion shown by the people of Hay to the students and teachers in the aftermath of the accident is something that will never be forgotten.
Community members of Hay and Busselton had planned on holding a memorial service to place a plaque at the crash site this year, but has been postponed due to COVID-19 travel restrictions.
At the time of the accident, the Honourable Barry House was the school's youth education officer and had organised the trip.
Mr House along with deputy principal Tom Tuffin, his wife Joan, teacher Susan Worley and the 78 students set out from Busselton on Saturday May 10 to Perth Airport where they boarded a plane to Adelaide.
"It was the beginning of, what we thought, would be a great adventure and learning experience for those 15-16 year old students," Mr House recalled.
The plane landed in Adelaide where the students and teachers boarded two buses for an overnight trip to Canberra before heading to the snowfields, Sydney and Melbourne.
"But - a few minutes before dawn on May 11, - when the buses took off from the roadhouse at Hay where we had stopped for a break, it all went wrong," Mr House said.
Deputy principal Tom Tuffin and his wife Joan were on the second bus with students as it departed the roadhouse in heavy rain.
Both buses had stopped to refuel giving the students a chance to descended en masse to the confectionery section of the store.
Mr Tuffin said there was a palatable air of excitement as the buses set off for the next leg of the journey.
"Spirits were high," he said.
"Once the bus was at cruising speed I walked down the aisle and suggested strongly that everyone should all slide down into their seats, put their heads down and go to sleep so that they would be refreshed to enjoy the very full day we had ahead.
"They seemed happy to snuggle down; and as events unfolded it became obvious that this simple act had unwittingly saved many lives.
"When the bus turned completely upside down the framework of the bus collapsed until the roof was resting on the frames of the top of the seats. Any student with their head between the seat and the roof would have been crushed. Sadly, however, it didn't save them all.
"On a straight stretch of road a couple of hundred metres from the roadhouse we had just left, the second bus in line drifted off the left hand side of the road at a relatively low speed with the wheels quickly getting stuck in the soft mud from overnight rain, flipping the bus over on it's side and roof and crumpling the front section badly.
"My next memory is that of the bus crashing through the bushes and the sound of the mud flying off the wheels and hitting the mudguards; this has remained with me ever since. I still react when driving on gravel and hear a similar noise."
His wife, Ms Tuffin said instinctively, as the bus settled she found herself pulling shattered glass from the door frame as she called to the students.
"Tom called from underneath me, 'Joan, thank God you are okay; get me a stick my hand is stuck.' Several students climbed through the opening I had made and then I also climbed out. Some-time later I saw Tom, who had managed to free himself. He immediately went to the rear of the bus and disconnected the sparking battery.
"As I looked along the bus it was a huge relief to see several students and our daughter, Penelope, climb out of the rear of the wreckage. Rodney, a senior student helped me to smash windows with a stick and forearms to get more students out. It was still a semi dark when I heard a voice calling, 'Mrs Tuffin, get us out, we are trapped.' I called back to her saying, "Cover your face and we will smash the window." We then pulled them out.
"We took the students up and sat them a distance from the wreck."
Mr House was on the first bus which stopped when the driver lost the lights of the second bus in his rear vision mirror.
"The driver, sensed something was wrong, began to reverse. I jumped out and ran back to the tragic scene," he said.
"I joined a few students who had managed to get out through windows and were helping others free themselves. Some were obviously still trapped inside and there were many sounds of distress.
"A couple of the first students out of the bus had the foresight to run back to the roadhouse to raise the alarm. It seemed only a matter of minutes before the Hay police, ambulance and other helpers arrived. I recall a passing truck stop to render assistance. These people were outstanding and quickly took control of the accident site and helped retrieve people from the wreckage. It was raining in the eerie dawn light."
The Hay emergency services took control of the accident site and the students and teachers eventually made their way back to the roadhouse to regroup.
Paramedic Robert Marmont said he received a phone call at 6.13am advising him a bus had rolled over and five people were injured.
"I took that as a small commuter type vehicle, we headed out in three ambulances, in the headlights it turned out to be a tourist coach on its roof," he said.
"There were around 30 kids, teachers and two drivers on the bus.
"My adrenaline levels were high and my mouth was dry, but my training kicked in. Most of the kids were out of the bus sitting on the side.
"About 10 or 12 had minor injuries like fractured collar bones, but there were still three or four students in the bus, it was dark at that time in the morning.
"Two ambulance officers went in one from each end of the bus and unfortunately found the driver to be deceased.
"The officers could only get half way up the bus because a big steel plate had blocked the entrance.
"There was one student found alive who could not find his way out because it was dark and he was still upside down, unfortunately two girls were deceased.
"We treated the injured, put them in ambulances and took around 26 people to hospital then triaged the rest of the kids who had been on the bus.
"One of the students had pelvic and head injuries, he was the only one transferred to Griffith Base Hospital which was 160 kilometres away.
"The students all ended up in Claughton House which was a student hostel in Hay, they stayed a couple of nights until they could get another bus."
Mr Marmont said the community showed a lot of warmth to the group, he attended Claughton House following the incident, the Lions Club, Rotary Club and community members were there to help.
"One of the old ladies I know here who is 100 years old said she actually washed shoes because they were up to their ankles in mud," he said.
"The community rallied around and looked after them, some of them were showered at the old jail before they went to the hostel.
"The students were unbelievable in what they were asked to do out of the scene and what they did without question."
Mr House said the people of Hay mobilised in magnificent fashion to help them.
"The boarding school hostel was opened up with volunteers producing hot drinks, breakfast and beds were made available for everyone to rest," he said.
"They took us under their wing to provide assistance, care and comfort in every way they could. Nothing was too much trouble. Meals were provided for the next couple of days and shoulders to cry on for the students.
"Somehow or other the Local Member of Parliament, Barry Blaikie MLA, appeared in Hay. He was in Victoria and, hearing about the accident, flew to Hay to provide comfort and support."
Once a bus became available the group decided to continue on to Canberra where students could fly home or continue to Sydney.
"As we cautiously made our way towards Canberra the spirits of the students seemed to lift in amazingly resilient style. They were very brave," Mr House said.
"Only two students eventually took the option of flying home and the other 74 braved a few days in Canberra then onwards to Sydney.
"The strain on some of the students and others must have been awful by then but everyone put on a brave face until we arranged a Qantas flight back to Perth. This was about six days after the accident.
"It would never happen today, but it was felt at the time that the students were better not to be in Busselton for the funerals of Tracey Blum and Ann Lloyd. They were held in the days before we arrived home."
An inquest into the accident was held in November that same year which found the bus which crashed killing three people should never have been on the road.
Mr House said the accident was directly caused by a weld joining two parts of the steering arm link breaking at that fateful moment so the driver had absolutely no control over the bus veering off the road.
"He couldn't brake heavily as the front wheel would have turned and stuck in the soft ground flipping the bus over to probably do much more serious damage than eventuated," he said.
"Apparently the bus had been assembled on an old truck chassis which had been involved in a fatal accident a decade earlier.
"Several illegal modifications were made to make the topside bus infrastructure fit the chassis and operate. One of these modifications was the illegal and very dangerous welding of the steering arm link.
"This had held intact for 10 years but, importantly, was inspected and cleared as roadworthy by the SA Government Authority only weeks before the accident.
"Some very shoddy, and highly unscrupulous, bus assembly work and a very cosy, inappropriate relationship between the bus company and the SA Government inspectors was exposed."
Parents Brian and Dorothy Blum visit Tracey's grave each year on Mother's Day with their other children to lay chrysanthemums on her site.
"She was a lovely kid," Mr Blum said.
"She was in Guides and the funny thing about that was when I looked through her stuff she had done all her guide books," Ms Blum said.
The Blum's were on their way to Perth for a wedding when they dropped Tracey off at the airport the day before before the fateful accident occurred.
Ms Blum said the next morning a policeman was at the hotel where they were staying telling them what had happened.
"It was unbelievable, I thought I never gave her a cuddle. The hardest part was putting Tracey in the ground and walking away.
"Her siblings were really broken up about it."
Ann Lloyd's younger sister Karen wanted to thank all the people who were at the accident who helped.
"I never really had an opportunity to thank the girls who were sitting with Ann, her friends, I never realised how much they had gone through," she said.
"You get wrapped up in the tragedy yourself and never really take the time to thank people who were there and still have problems, some people still have trauma and reoccurring injuries.
"It really was tragic, it was Mother's Day and they had not been away for long.
"Ann was my older sister, for me I will always see her as my daughter, I am in my 50's now, I got older and she stayed the same age."
Mr House said people injured in the accident had battles with insurance companies which continued for years, with only partial resolution in the end.
"Channel 9's 60 Minutes", with Jana Wendt, took an interest and screened an episode on the accident and it's aftermath.
"Publicity continued to simmer for several years and the trauma for the students and families involved lingered for a long time.
"Now - 40 years later - that fateful day and it's consequences still loom large with many of us. It was a life changing event - in all the worst ways.
"From a personal standpoint, I always took a very keen interest in any legislation involving bus safety, especially the need for seatbelts, during 30 years in the WA State Parliament from 1987.
"Out of all this, there is a lasting bond, empathy and respect between the many people from Busselton and Hay. We will be forever grateful for the way Hay embraced our terrible circumstances and helped us through the most difficult days of our lives."
