Two Co Galway schoolgirls were in a serious condition and one other was described as "stable" in hospital last night after an accident during their journey home on a school bus.
Bus Eireann and the Garda in Tuam, Co Galway, are investigating. It is understood that shortly after 3 p.m. the bus window fell out while the vehicle was moving, and the girls sitting in the back seat fell out on to the roadside.
No vehicles were following the bus at the time, and the driver stopped immediately.
Three of the girls, aged nine, 10 and 11, were being treated in University College Hospital, Galway, last night, having sustained head and back injuries and fractures. Two were described by a Western Health Board spokeswoman as "serious".
Other pupils on the bus, which is operated by Bus Eireann, were badly shocked by the incident, which occurred near the village of Irishtown.
Mr Jim Woolley, area services manager for Bus Eireann, said the circumstances were unclear, and further inquiries were being made. The children had been collected from Belmont National School, near Tuam, and the bus was travelling slowly when the driver noticed one girl on the road.
He stopped immediately. Emergency services were at the scene within minutes, he said, and took the girls by ambulance to hospital in Galway.
Mr Woolley said that on behalf of Bus Eireann he wished the girls a speedy recovery, and expressed sympathy to the pupils and their families. In 40 years in the transport business, he had never heard of such an accident, he said.
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