"We were bleeding but we knew we had to get out", says Oman bus crash survivor

One of the survivors of the bus crash that left two people dead and seven fighting for life has spoken of the terrifying moment his coach was in collision with a heavy truck.

Mahiuddin Ahmed, a Bangladeshi, was travelling from Muscat to Salalah on that bus. As he slept onboard in the early hours of Friday, his bus was in collision with a truck. Both drivers died in the impact, seven people are still fighting for life in hospital and 34 suffered minor injuries

Mahiuddin said: “Lots of us were sleeping and all of us were flung to the floor because of the impact of the crash. Several of my co-passengers were crying and desperate because the door to the exit had become jammed because of the accident and we could not get out.

“Many of us were bleeding profusely, but we knew we had to get out, so we carefully made our way through a hole that been caused by the accident. It was only when I came out of the bus that I realised that I was feeling light-headed, because my left leg was bleeding very badly. I sat down and then I blacked out."

“I was woken up by ambulance workers, who had arrived with the Royal Oman Police.

“They told me I had fainted and rushed me to the hospital in Haima around 11am.”

A fleet of air and ground ambulances – including army medics – ferried the injured to hospitals across four governorates for treatment.

A 15-year-old Yemeni boy remains critically ill in Nizwa Hospital after the crash, as Oman’s Ministry of Health confirmed it activated its emergency plan for major incidents in the Sultanate and manned a central command and control centre throughout the rescue operation.

“About an hour after we left Haima, a lorry coming the other way smashed into the front of the bus,” survivor Ahmed said.

I have been discharged but many other passengers are still in the hospital. I know that the driver of our bus has died, and it is by God’s grace that I have survived today”.

An Omani was driving in the opposite direction, from Muscat to Salalah, when he witnessed the horrific crash. The man, who requested anonymity, said: “It was about 7am or 7:30am, and I was on my way to Muscat, when I saw what had happened. I went to help, but I saw that the Royal Oman Police had already arrived on the scene and were taking people to hospital. I asked around and some people had already been taken, while more were being loaded into ambulances and driven to Haima Hospital.”

Officials from Salalah Line Transport, the company that owns the passenger coach involved in yesterday’s death crash, say it is too early to comment on how the crash happened and that they are working to establish the cause.

“As most of the people were sleeping, we don’t know whether it was the fault of the bus driver or the truck. Investigations are going on to ascertain the cause of the accident,” an official said.

Three people fighting for life were airlifted to Nizwa hospital and nine others were transported by road after the crash, around 7am on Friday.

The two men killed in the accident were the drivers of the vehicles, one Indian national and one Pakistani, police have confirmed.

All involved in the crash were expatriates, mostly of Asian origin, the police statement added.

The Royal Oman Police put out a statement on Friday, saying that the accident had taken place 45 kilometres south of the Haima province, and that by 9.50am on Friday, the injured were airlifted to Haima for treatment.

An “emergency plan” was activated to ferry and treat crash victims after the passenger coach and heavy truck collided, the Ministry of Health said in a statement.

The ministry tweeted “Nizwa Hospital has received seven injured victims through the Ministry Of Health ambulance, Royal Oman Police helicopters and ambulances, along with the Oman Royal Army ambulance.”

The total number of injuries reported by the Ministry now stands at 41, with seven of them critical, five serious, two moderate and 27 minor.

According to a stream of tweets from the Ministry of Health, emergency flights airlifted the injured to Dhofar, Al Wusta, Ad Dakhiliya and Muscat hospitals.