Coach crash scene 'total bedlam'

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Villager recalls coach crash

A woman has described as "total bedlam" the scene which greeted her when a coach crashed into her garden killing a man and injuring 71 people.

The coach collided with two cars, crashed through a wall and ended up in a garden near the Alton Towers theme park in Staffordshire on Monday.

Three people remain in a critical condition in hospital.

"(I) looked out of my bedroom window and saw the coach flying through the air and landing," Terri Peachey said.

"The coach was coming from the driveway down into the garden and turning onto its side and then crash landing into the garden."

'Shouting and crying'

The bus, from a firm in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, had been carrying farm migrant workers on a day trip.

Investigators used specialist cranes to remove the shell of the coach from the scene in Station Road, Alton, on Tuesday, and families who had to leave their homes have been allowed back.

Tests are being carried out on it at a police garage to try to find out how the crash happened.

Terri Peachey has now been allowed back home

Ms Peachey, who has an 11-year-old son, Connor, said she saw the side windows which were effectively on the top being kicked out by passengers.

"You just don't expect the coach to land in the garden," she said.

"(There was) lots of screaming and shouting and crying and lots of blood.

"As soon as the coach had landed I had got on the phone to 999 and got my son to grab loads of towels.

"Then after I finished on the phone I just told him to go and watch cartoons and close the curtains and then I came outside and helped out the best I could."

Fruit pickers

Police have travelled to Northamptonshire to interview the passengers, who were fruit pickers based at Lutton Farm in Oundle.

A 26-year-old Polish man died in the crash and seven people remain in hospital.

Police said on Wednesday the condition of a 21-year-old woman being treated at Birmingham's Selly Oak Hospital had worsened.

No-one was inside either of the cars that the coach hit

She is now said to be in a critical condition.

The 63-year-old driver, from the Peterborough area, is in a critical but not life-threatening condition in intensive care at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire after suffering "serious leg injuries".

Officers said he provided a negative breath test.

A 21-year-old woman from Poland was also in a critical life-threatening condition at the same hospital.

Four others remain in stable conditions and are being treated at various hospitals across the West Midlands.

There were passengers from Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania and a man from South Africa on the coach.

Residents in Alton started laying flowers at the scene of the incident on Wednesday morning.