In December 2017, this bus accident took the lives of six college students. Since then, the driver has never changed her version: “I appealed because the barriers were raised,” reiterated Nadine Oliveira at the start of the day. But, despite his denials, testimonies going against his word multiplied during his appeal trial.
“We saw the bus calmly push the barrier” of the level crossing, said this Tuesday two witnesses to the fatal school bus accident in Millas (Pyrénées-Orientales), at the driver’s appeal trial. The 55-year-old woman has always assured that no signal, neither sound, nor light, nor any barrier have dissuaded her from using the Millas level crossing.
Awakening amid “the screams and tears of children”
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 five years in prison, one year of which was closed.
Tuesday morning, she was able to retrace, minute by minute, the course of the day of the tragedy, only bursting into tears at the mention of its outcome, when she woke up in the middle of “screams and tears children.” The day of December 14, 2017 began “as usual”, with an inventory of his bus. Nadine Oliveira was in “normal” condition according to her statements. For her last journey of the day, she was “in no hurry”, and knew this route by heart which she took four times a day.
“The bus quietly pushed the barrier”
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 astounded, we asked ourselves, ‘What is he doing, but what is he doing?’ “. Questioned several times about the certainty of his memories, the witness assured that this day was “forever engraved” 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,” this witness considered.
“The force of habit”
Another motorist, who also arrived on the scene when the level crossing was closed, confirmed this version: “the bus pushed the barrier very slowly, there was no impact”. The director of investigation, interviewed Tuesday morning, confirmed that after the accident, the barrier was found “twisted, in the closed position” and that no failure of the level crossing had been noted.
To explain Nadine Oliveira’s action, 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 turn in front of the level crossing, and which the driver detailed in minute detail to investigators. Seven years after the events, this gendarmerie major, more accustomed to criminal investigations, described “a war scene” at the scene of this tragedy.
