Settlement of €1.78m for fall from bus's back window

A young woman who was a school girl when she sustained a severe head injury after falling out the back window of a school bus has settled her High Court action for €1.78 million.

Bernadette Nicholson was 10 years old when she and three school friends fell through the rear window of a bus bringing them home from school near Milltown, Co Galway.

She was unconscious after the accident and was transferred to University College Hspital, Galway and later Beaumont Hospital, Dublin for treatment.

In the High Court , Mr Justice Kevin Cross approved the €1.78 million settlement for Ms Nicholson, now aged 24, of Milltown.

She had sued Bus Éireann as a result of the accident on January 22nd, 2001.

The judge said he had no hesitation approving the settlement for Ms Nicholson, a third level business student, who, the judge said, made a “remarkable recovery” from appalling circumstances.

At a District Court hearing in 2002, Judge Mary Fahy found Bus Éireann was fully responsible for the accident.

During those proceedings, a schoolgirl, Blaithin McWalters, said she had filed onto the bus with her friends after school at Belmont Nation School, Milltown, on Monday, January 22nd 2001, and sat in the back seat “because it is the cool seat”.

After the bus stopped to let one boy off at his home at Ballymara, the girls decided to stand up on the seat, link arms and sway against the movement of the bus as it rounded corners.

Ms McWalters said she found herself on the right hand edge of a group of six or seven girls and noticed a piece of rubber was hanging down from the top right corner of the window.

“The next thing I heard something and I looked back and I saw Sarah hit her head off the top of the bus,” she said.

Four girls – Sarah Lawlor, Claire McGrath, Bernadette Nicholson, and Saoirse McWalters – fell onto the road as the back window fell out and crashed onto the road.

They were all taken to hospital in Galway suffering from injuries including grazed elbows and head wounds and Ms Nicholson was later transferred to Beaumont Hospital.

Judge Fahy found Bus Éireann guilty of being the owner of a vehicle with a defect that was a danger to the public and that could have been discovered through the exercise of ordinary care.

She did not accept pressure by the children alone would have been enough to cause the window to slip out and also imposed a fine on Bus Éireann.