Italy bus crash: Australian woman details FlixBus response after crash

Sinead Curry spoke with Today from Rome where she is still in significant pain after the bus she was travelling on flipped into an embankment near the town of Avellino, 50km from Naples, on Sunday morning.

“We’re not holding up well. None of us are OK,” she said on Wednesday.

Three days after the terrifying incident, she says she has been let down by the company, FlixBus, at every turn.

“Their response has just been too a little too late at every single turn,” she said.

“The bus crash happened at around 3.45am, we didn’t hear from them until 7.43am.”

She said she received an automated text from FlixBus saying, “We hear you have been in a crash. Hope you’re OK. Here is a 10 euro meal replacement and non-alcoholic beverage replacement voucher.”

She said passengers heard nothing for another hour before a second text arrived saying a replacement bus was on its way to the crash site.

“All of us were terrified, we were not going to get on a bus,” she said.

Another two messages were received at 9am and 11am, advising the passengers to call a number that “rang out” when it was called.

Ms Curry said she was “furious” when she discovered that the bus driver had given a statement to police and she still had not been able to speak with a representative from the company.

She also went into detail about the moment the bus flipped into the embankment while most of the passengers were asleep.

She said she woke while being tossed out of her seat as the bus rolled multiple times, with the windows exploding upon impact.

“Immediately after the crash, everyone was crying and screaming in their own native language,” she said.

It is understood the bus crashed into an existing multiple vehicle crash. One man was reportedly killed.

Ms Curry said the passengers were still “crawling out of the wreckage” when another two cars slammed into the bus.

“I’m still in pain in my face, my nose and the back of my head as well as my neck and my back,” she said.

She detailed the continued ordeal in the Italian hospital where a language barrier meant she had to point to where she was in pain to indicate where the medical staff should X-ray her.