A woman who sustained significant head injuries when she was ten years of age has heard her settlement of compensation for a school bus accident approved at the High Court.
On January 22nd 2001, Bernadette Nicholson from Milltown in County Galway was seated on the back seat of the school bus home from the Belmont National School in Milltown with several of her friends. On the journey home, the girls decided to stand up on the back seat and sway against the movement of the bus as it rounded corners.
Unfortunately for Bernadette and three of her friends, as the bus pulled away after dropping off another child, the glass in the back window crashed out of its frame and the four schoolchildren fell out of the bus and onto the road – Bernadette being knocked unconscious by the fall and taken to University College Hospital in Galway with severe head injuries. Bernadette was later transferred to the specialist unit at the Beaumont Hospital in Dublin.
An enquiry into the accident discovered that the seal surrounding the window was broken and, in 2002, Bus Éireann was found 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. The judge in the case – Judge Mary Fahy – disagreed with the bus company that the pressure exerted by the girls would have been enough to force the glass out of the window.
Bernadette – now 24 years of age – made a claim for compensation for the school bus accident against Bus Éireann and, at the High Court in Dublin, Mr Justice Kevin Cross was told the circumstances of the accident and Judge Fahy´s decision in 2002. Stating that Bernadette had made a remarkable recovery from appalling circumstances, the judge approved Bernadette´s €1.78 million settlement of compensation for a school bus accident and closed the case.