Exford, Melbourne school bus crash: Tradies who rescued kids reveal their heartbreaking words

Four hero tradies who rescued dozens of injured kids trapped in an overturned school bus were met with horror screams and cries of ‘Where’s my mum?’

The children from Exford Primary School in Melbourne’s west also told their rescuers, ‘I don’t want to go on the bus again’ and begged for them to ‘call my parents’.

The school bus was struck from behind by a truck and overturned on the corner of Exford and Murphys Rd at Eynesbury at about 3.40pm on Tuesday.

There were 45 children from Exford Primary School, which was located just 900m away from the crash site, who were onboard and heading home for the day.

Four tradesmen – Dean Eastway, Daniel Green, Billy Chimielewski and Cameron Chalmers – were driving home from a building site when they witnessed the horrific crash right in front of their eyes.

A school bus carrying children from Exford Primary School in Melbourne’s west was hit from behind by a truck and overturned

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Mr Chimielewski, who was driving directly behind the truck when it hit the bus, recalled the impact sounding like ‘a bomb went off’ to A Current Affair. 

Without a second thought, the four men jumped out of their vehicles and ran towards danger to help the terrified children trapped inside.

Mr Chimielewski said the men ‘ripped the hatches off the doors’ and were met with ‘smoke and dust’ before they started pulling kids out of the wreckage.

‘(I was) scared that there were going to be kids dead,’ Mr Eastway, who works in commercial air conditioning, recounted. 

‘(There was) heaps of screaming, wanting to get out of there and they were just pinned down, face down.’

After pulling some of the school children out, the men gave some of them their work jumpers to keep them warm.

More to come