Dozens of people were injured, three seriously, after a doubledecker bus carrying 70 construction workers overturned in Somerset, police have said, as what was initially declared a major incident was stood down.
Avon and Somerset police said a significant number of police, fire and ambulance units attended the scene on the A39 Quantock Road near Bridgwater after receiving the first call at about 6am on Tuesday.
A total of 54 patients were triaged at the scene, of whom 26 were treated as walking wounded, police said. Three people were freed from the bus using mechanical equipment, the fire service said.
Police said a number of those treated at the scene were taken to Musgrove Park hospital in Taunton, Bridgwater minor injury unit, and 40 miles away to Bristol’s Southmead hospital.
The incident came as temperatures plunged below zero, creating icy conditions on the roads.
The energy firm EDF confirmed on Twitter that the bus was carrying members of the workforce at Hinkley Point C, the nuclear power station building site, nine miles from the site of the crash.
A bus carrying members of the Hinkley Point C workforce has been involved in a traffic incident on the A39 in Bridgwater. Emergency services are on the scene and travel to and from the site has been suspended.
— Hinkley Point C (@hinkleypointc) January 17, 2023
Insp Rebecca Wells-Cole, of Avon and Somerset police, confirmed there had been no deaths.
She said: “We were called to the A39 Quantock Road in Bridgewater following a report of a road-related incident involving a double-decker bus and a motorcyclist. We can now confirm the doubledecker bus was carrying 70 Hinkley Point C workers and the bus driver when it overturned.
“The incident was initially declared as a major incident due to the number of people involved and the resources required. This has since been stood down.”
Closures were in place at the junction of Sandford Hill and Quantock Road, police said.
The Devon and Somerset fire and rescue service said: “Crews used hydraulic cutting equipment and small tools to extricate three casualties from the bus.”
Ceri Smart, a strategic commander at the South Western ambulance service NHS foundation trust (SWASFT), said the service sent 23 ambulances, two critical care teams and two hazardous area response teams to the scene.
The MP for Bridgwater and West Somerset, Ian Liddell-Grainger, called for the fullest investigation into the causes of the incident.
“Obviously it was a terrifying experience for everyone on that bus and my thoughts are with them and their families,” he told the Bridgwater Mercury. “But we absolutely must get to the bottom of why this crash occurred because EDF is very conscious of the need to maintain the highest safety standards for the protection of their workers – and that concern naturally extends to those periods when they are being transferred to and from the site.
“I am aware police have been reporting a high number of accidents in the area this morning, all of them blamed on icy road conditions. We need to establish as soon as we can whether similar circumstances played a role in this particular event.”
A Somerset county council spokesperson said: “Our winter service team closely monitors the forecast in advance and all roads on Somerset’s precautionary gritting network are treated when temperatures are forecast to fall below zero. This is 21% of the county’s roads and includes all major routes.
“All main routes were gritted yesterday afternoon before temperatures dropped and there was a further gritting operation across the county the following morning.”
