Exford, Melbourne school bus crash: Tradies who rescued kids reveal their heartbreaking words

A group of heroes who rescued dozens of children trapped in an overturned school bus have remembered their heartbreaking words, including “Where’s my mom?”

The children of Exford Primary School in Melbourne’s west also tearfully told their rescuers, ‘I don’t want to go on the bus again’ and ‘call my parents’.

The school bus was hit from behind by a lorry at about 3.40pm on Tuesday and overturned at the corner of Exford and Murphys Rd near Eynesbury.

There were 45 children from Exford Primary School, which was just 900 meters from the crash site, on board and heading home for the day.

Four tradesmen – Dean Eastway, Daniel Green, Billy Chimielewski and Cameron Chalmers – were driving home from a construction site when they witnessed the horrific crash right before their very eyes.

Mr Chimielewski, who was driving directly behind the lorry when it hit the bus, recalled the impact sounding like “a bomb went off” to A current situation.

Without thinking twice, the four men jumped out of their vehicles and raced into danger to help the terrified children trapped inside.

Mr Chimielewski said the men had ‘torn the shutters off the doors’ and collected ‘smoke and dust’ before beginning to pull children from the wreckage.

“(I was) afraid that children would die,” said Mr. Eastway, who works in commercial air conditioning.

“(There was) a lot of screaming, they wanted to get out of there and they just got pinned down, face down.”

After taking some schoolchildren outside, the men gave some of them their work sweaters to keep them warm.

More to come