Hospital calls on ‘major incident team’ to deal with M53 school bus crash

Alder Hey Children’s Hospital and Arrowe Park Hospital declared ‘major incidents’ after a bus carrying pupils from two Wirral schools overturned on the M53 on Friday morning.

The coach struck a reservation on junction 5 of the northbound carriageway just after 8am, Merseyside Police said in statement. Emergency services and an air ambulance attended as large stretches of the motorway were closed.

The bus had been taking students to both West Kirby Grammar School for Girls and Calday Grange Grammar School. Children are being taken to nearby Arrowe Park and Alder Hey Children’s Hospital for treatment.

A spokesperson for North West Ambulance Service confirmed that a female patient has been taken to hospital with major trauma-related injuries and around 50 other patients are being assessed at the scene.

Arrowe Park Hospital and Alder Hey Children’s Hospital both declared a ‘major incident’. The latter de-escalated from a major incident at around 1.30pm but said that the Emergency Department remains ‘extremely busy’ and asked parents to only bring their children to the department if it is urgent.

A spokesperson for Wirral University Teaching Hospital, which runs Arrowe Park Hospital, said: “We have clear plans in place to deal with these types of emergency situations and our services are ready to receive any casualties. The trust has declared a major incident and the major incident team has been stood up to manage the situation.”

Due to the incident, a number of clinical support workers taking part in Friday’s Unison strike have returned to work, with staff nurses also telling LiverpoolWorld they have come in on their day off to help.