Eyewitnesses to the accident in which 48 schoolchildren and three adults were injured last night said a horse and rider crossing the Chapelizod by-pass had caused the truck to collide with the double decker coach. One person said there were two horses.
Tristan Mullally (17), a student at the Salesian Boys' College, Celbridge, said he had seen the horse just before the collision. "I saw a horse with a chap on it going across the road," he told The Irish Times at the Meath Hospital in Dublin where he was treated for cuts and bruises.
A second eyewitness, the driver of a Mazda motorcar also involved in the crash, did not want to be named but said the articulated truck had "jack-knifed into the coach to avoid two horses with two fellas on them". He sustained injuries to his neck and lower back.
The drivers of the coach, the truck and the car, along with 16 of the 48 children on the coach, were taken to the Meath Hospital.
Mrs Maura Fusco from Celbridge, whose son, Ricci, sustained minor injuries, said: "I heard the news on 2FM in a traffic update. I rang the school and they said there were no fatalities so I was relieved. Then Ricci phoned me and told me he was grand. Reports that there were horses on the road were disgraceful. This was a freak accident but those horses should not have been there in the first place."
Ricci said he was "very lucky to be alive". "The truck crashed into the side of the bus and I was sitting beside the window, so it hit me in the side," he said.
He suffered bruising on the ribs and a cut to his eye but, he said, there were others much worse. "I saw one boy with a big open wound on the side of his face," he added.
There was panic and "a lot of screaming and shouting" as the children attempted to extricate themselves from the bus. Smoke was billowing from the rear, said Tristan Mullally. "Everyone flew into the air when it happened."
Ciaran Maloney (17) received a cut to his head when it hit the front of a seat. "I don't remember much but I saw a truck coming across the road and then everyone was screaming," he said.
Mrs Breda Kennedy, a parent of one of the boys, said that the priest at the school had phoned and told her the news. "But I had to ring four hospitals before I found out where he was," she added before rushing off to casualty to locate her son.