A schoolboy was left with horrific injuries after being run over by a bus in a Fife car park, a court has heard.
The boy, who was 13 when the accident happened last February, was trapped under the wheels of the coach for more than 30 minutes.
He suffered broken bones in his right arm and leg and needed five operations, including skin grafts and the insertion of pins into his leg.
One witness said the accident scene was “like something out of a horror film”, while the boy’s grandmother told Dunfermline Sheriff Court she was warned by medics that he might require “at least one amputation”.
“I can tell you hundreds of things he’s never going to be able to do, but he’s lucky to be alive,” she added.
She was giving evidence in the trial of bus driver John Morrison, 59, of Marmion Drive, Glenrothes, who denies driving dangerously and failing to properly observe the roadway around him in Dunfermline’s Allan Crescent on February 28 last year, when the 13-year-old and a 12-year-old boy were hurt after being struck by the vehicle.
The older casualty, who is now 14 and cannot be named for legal reasons, said he had been walking home from Woodmill High School with a friend, chatting and looking at a phone, when he suddenly found himself under the bus.
Defence solicitor Dana Forbes questioned the boy’s claim that he could not remember what happened before the accident, asking if he was “trying to protect anyone”.
The teenager replied replied: “No, I’m trying to remember what happened.”
Sheriff Charles Macnair paid tribute to the youngster, telling him: “From what you have told me you have shown very remarkable fortitude in the face of serious injury. Many people who come before this court would have made much more of a meal of these injuries and for that you should be proud.”
Removal man Michael Dunster, 21, said he saw the bus ploughing into a group of school pupils moments after parking his van in Allan Crescent. He estimated it had been travelling at around 10mph.
“It was like slow motion, like something out of a horror film,” he said.
Mr Dunster said Morrison waved him around to the driver’s side of the coach and asked him if the boy was dead.
“I said ‘I don’t know’,” he added.
His colleague Samuel Melville, 29, said he saw a group of around 10 children walking on the road as the bus approached.
He said the vehicle only stopped when two boys were underneath it, and one managed to get out.
Mr Melville added: “I was angry — it’s just the fact that he (Morrison) never got off the bus to see what had happened.”
The court also heard from hairdresser Katie Louise Blackburn, 32, who shouted at Morrison to get off the bus after the collision but told the court: “I don’t think he did, I think he was in shock.”
Fellow witness Graham Corke, 50, said he heard “shouting, screaming, commotion” and initially thought children were fighting.
“When I saw what had happened I dived under the bus to have a look at the kid and keep him as calm as I possibly could,” he recalled.
The trial has been adjourned until August.
