A nurse told jurors she heard a cry of agony “like an animal in pain” as she walked through a Highland car park to pick up her child from primary school.
Speaking at the trial of bus driver Nigel Dunn, Bethan Murdoch said it was “a yelp I had heard before” in my job as a nurse and that she knew what it was.
The 33-year-old health visitor – who has 12 years experience as a nurse – said a man she had seen walking towards his car had been run over by a bus as it approached a bus stop.
And she told Inverness Sheriff Court that as she went to then 74-year-old Les Crichton’s aid, the bus driver got out out of his vehicle to shout at the casualty “You should not have been parked there”.
She couldn’t remember if he had asked if Mr Crichton was OK, but the bus driver was told to go away.
“It was totally inappropriate,” she said.
“It was the driver’s fault.
“The car was a hazard parked in front of the bus stop. He should have given the car enough room. There was enough to get past the car.”
Dunn denies causing serious injury to retired Inverness businessman Les Crichton, now 78, by dangerous driving in a Carrbridge car park on March 22, 2017.
Serious injuries
Earlier in the trial, the jury located in the Eden Court theatre and remotely connected by video, Mr Crichton told them that he suffered a double pelvis fracture and a bad cut to the head as he was crushed between the bus and his car.
He also later fell ill due to damage to his intestine. Mr Crichton spent five weeks in hospital, the same period in a wheelchair and had almost two months of physiotherapy and still walks with a stick.
Mr Crichton said he had “exchanged words” with 53-year-old Dunn, of Muirton Place, Boat of Garten, after answering a call of nature.
He’d parked his car close to a public toilet to limit the distance he had to walk due to a muscle issue.
The witness told the trial: “I was en-route to get back into my car when the bus moved.
“I wasn’t blocking the bus stop. I was rolled along the side of my car, squashed between the two.
“My pelvis broke on the pillar of the door of my Kia Sportage.”
Mrs Murdoch confirmed Mr Crichton’s assertion the bus was not at the bus stop when Mr Crichton parked, but was approaching as Mr Crichton left the toilet building.
“He was dazed and shocked and bleeding from the head but he started to speak to me when the bus driver came over and started shouting at him,” she said.
“Then he told the bus driver that he didn’t want to speak to him.”
Accused told police “I didn’t see the guy”
Road policing sergeant Angus MacLeod was called to the car park and then viewed CCVV from the bus the following day.
He said: “It is obvious there was sufficient room for the bus to take a wider course past the Kia and that the driver was fully aware the pedestrian was standing at the side of the vehicle.”
Sgt MacLeod said that when charged Dunn replied: “I just didn’t see the guy.”
He explained he was looking out for traffic and other people as he pulled out from the bus stop.
The trial continues.
