Drama in Millas: “I appealed because the barriers were up,” said the bus driver during her hearing

“We saw the bus quietly push the barrier” of the level crossing, two witnesses said on Tuesday of the fatal school bus accident in Millas (Pyrénées-Orientales), at the driver’s appeal trial, undermining the latter’s defense.

At the start of the day, Nadine Oliveira, the defendant, began her hearing with these words: “I appealed because the barriers were lifted“. The 55-year-old bus driver has never changed her version since her first custody: according to her, no signal, neither sound, nor light, nor any barrier have dissuaded her from taking the crossing to Millas level.

On December 14, 2017, the bus bringing 23 college students home after classes was in the middle of the rails when a TER hit it at 75 km/h, a collision which left six dead and seventeen injured, some seriously. Nadine Oliveira, who had to be hospitalized after 4 days of hearing during the first trial, was sentenced in her absence to 5 years in prison, one year of which is closed.

Tuesday morning, she was able to retrace, minute by minute, the unfolding of the day of the tragedy, only bursting into tears at the mention of its outcome, when she woke up in the middle “children’s cries and cries”.

The day of December 14, 2017 had begun “as per usual”by an inventory of his car. Nadine Oliveira was in a state “normal” according to his words. For her last trip of the day, she was not “no rush”and knew this route by heart which she took four times a day.

“Engraved forever”

But his version of the facts was largely contradicted by the investigation, and by the various testimonies of people present on the scene.

First of all that of an employee of Saur, a sanitation company, who, seeing the barriers of the level crossing close, was waiting with his colleague on the other side of the road when he saw that “the bus quietly pushed the barrier, as if opening a door”.

“My colleague and I were stunned, we asked ourselves ‘What is she doing, but what is she doing?'”. Questioned several times about the certainty of his memories, the witness assured that this day was “engraved forever” in his memory: “we were in shock, it was because of the children’s cries that we reacted”. “Maybe she didn’t see it, the bus is so high”considered this witness.

Another motorist, who also arrived on the scene when the level crossing was closed, validated this version: “the bus pushed the barrier very slowly, there was no shock”. The director of investigation, interviewed Tuesday morning, confirmed that after the accident, the barrier was found “twisted, in closed position” and that no level crossing failure had been noted.

To explain Ms. Oliveira’s gesture, he mentioned “the force of habit” : the driver had used this level crossing 400 times and had never found it closed. But also “the hyperconcentration she demonstrated during her maneuver”a maneuver described by all as “complicated” to approach the bend in front of the level crossing, and which the driver detailed carefully to the investigators.

Seven years after the events, this gendarmerie major more accustomed to criminal investigations described “a war scene”. The Saur employee, “marked for life”always remembers“a girl with a head injury and a little boy with a crushed wrist, they were crying without stopping”.