Yey, time for holidays! Also there was a BUS CRASH!!
Today is my last day of work before the holidays and it should be a fairly easy going day. I’ve done some of the work I intended to do today already and have a few things left to do this morning.
Then this afternoon we are having a team ROC meeting which is normally very stress free these days. We will probably have coffee and mince pies and people will mostly discuss the work that the Dream Team do (waste stuff). I normally say a couple of words about what i do but not much because no one is really that interested.
Then as soon as it is 4pm I am going to race home and get the last few things i need into my suitcase ready to go. Must remember to take the rubbish out to the bins, switch the dishwasher off standby (it is washing now whilst i am at work), shut down my PC, turn down the heating thermostat slightly and give the fish some food. Also must remember to go and get the fish a feeding block on the way home and drop the keys off to Reagan so that he can feed them whilst we are away.
Crazy stuff happened yesterday after work! Quite an exciting evening. Firstly, I left work and walked over to Polsloe Road to the Doctors. On Tuesday morning we had dropped off my repeat prescription request so I was going to go and pick it up. Got there after 20 mins walk and they told me that they had sent it directly to Boots as normal despite me crossing that part out on the request. They said i should have specifically said i wanted to collect. They are probably right. Anyway it doesn’t make much difference as we have to go to Boots to pick up the pills anyway. I called James and told him what had happened and he said he’d stop off at Boots to pick them up.
Walked another 20 mins into town - a nice waste of time in all. I realised that really i should get something nice to wear for John’s 60th Birthday party so I popped into Monsoon. I’ve seen quite a few nice skirts and tops in there recently but resisted because they are pretty pricey. In the end I got a skirt, top and wooly cardigan to wear for his party. Whilst i was there i also got some jeans because my current pairs are threatening to all wear out at the same time. All in all came to just under £200 but I haven’t bought any clothes in ages and this should last a while. I made sure i bought clothes that were nice enough to wear out to stuff but also not too dressy for work, so double usage!
Popped into M&S and witnessed a mother having a right go at her 3 children in the hoisery department. Some people are weird. Intended to go to the fish shop but totally forgot so will have to go today. Went home and caught the last 10 mins of Neighbours and watched the news a bit.
It was about 6:40pm and i was watching the beginning of Spotlight whilst chatting on IRC a bit. James was still out because he was picking up parcels and going to Boots to get my prescription (which incidentally they didn’t have because it had been sent to the High Street Boots first and wouldn’t arrive at the normal Boots until sometime today *sigh*). Suddenly there was a massively loud crashing noise that really startled me and it sounded like it was coming from just outside my window. I stood up and looked out and a bus had crashed into the blue Cannon Hygiene van that is always parked in the loading bay outside the Devon County Council community centre building accross the road and careered into the the building. It had pushed the van out into the road and smashed in the back of it. The front of the bus was all mangled and the windscreen was totally shattered. Bricks had crumbled away from the wall and the building windows were smashed. Later i saw that the wall was dangerously buckling inwards.
I stood shocked for a second and then grabbed for the phone that was on my desk. I could see people moving inside the bus but i was pretty sure no one would have managed to call 999 yet so I thought i better had do. I was so shocked seeing what had happened that i was pretty rubbish when calling. The guy said “do you want police, fire or ambulance” and i said “I don’t know! There’s been a bus crash!”. The man calmly said “Ok, you’ll probably want the police first off.” and put me through to the police. I told the police what had happened and that there were people on the bus and stuff and they said they’d send round a unit straight away.
I looked out the window again and a few people were off the bus and running away because they thought it might blow up or something. I grabbed my keys and home phone and mobile and went out to see if i could help people. I was shaking and could hardly get the key in the door to lock behind me. The police arrived within about a minute and started stopping traffic further down the road and sorting out passengers. It soon became evident that everyone who’d been on the bus was pretty much ok. The driver was looking pretty startled as most of the front of the bus where he would have been sitting was destroyed. Here is a pic that i took from the window. It doesn’t show the damage quite so well because it was dark but you can see where it’s gone so high that it’s taken bits off wall out. When they moved the bus you could see that the wall was pretty much fubared.
The police called for the fire brigade because the bus and van were obviously going to need moving but the fire brigade would have to make sure there wasn’t any chance of it blowing up and stuff. I decided to go back upstairs because no one was hurt and stuff and they just needed to clear it all away. I searched my pockets for my keys and couldn’t find them! I was well worried. Luckily the front door of Augusta Court had done it’s typical thing of not swinging shut properly so i was able to get inside. A woman was just entering the building as well and i blathered something about losing my keys. She gave me a funny look as though i was mad. When i got upstairs i saw that i’d left the keys in the door! I’d locked it and then just left the keys in the lock! I was obviously quite distracted!
Inside, I put the webcam on to it and a few people on IRC watched it with me. Some rubble clearing men arrived and a tow truck to take away the van. Later they managed to pull the bus away by tying some string round it and pulling it off somewhere.
After a good cup of tea i calmed down a bit but i didn’t manage as much packing for holiday as i hoped to because i felt a bit freaked even though no one was hurt. It was a strange accident really. Market Street is one way. It has loading bays on the right hand side with a full lane to pass by them so no need to swerve. The bus should have just sailed past to the left of the van. The road narrows to the left hand side a bit further up because of a pedestrian crossing with signals. They only recently put a load of anti-skid road surfacing there also. The bus however didn’t impact the van on the left hand side as if it just clipped it due to an inexperienced driver. It’s as if the driver fell asleep at the wheel or passed out or something because he impacted the van on it’s right hand side, wedging the bus into the building and pushing the van out to the left (as you can see on the photo). Unfortunately i didn’t see it happen but there were plenty of witnesses on the bus itself who could probably say whether the driver just seemed to lose it or something. Maybe it will be in the news if it turns out there were strange shinanigans other than just ‘accident’. He could have swerved to avoid a pedestrian of course or something similar.
Well it was all very exciting. Not sure i’ve ever had to ring 999 before!