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A minute after a school bus driver noticed his bus engine temperature was reading a bit high, he heard screams from students behind him.
A look in the rear-view mirror showed students “jumping around and screaming” as hot engine water, or coolant, which had likely reached temperatures of more than 80C was spraying around the front section of the bus like a garden hose.
A hose join, used as part of the heating system, had burst.
Three students suffered burns – one to her leg and knee, another to his arm, and the third to her hands – during the accident in February 2023.
Three Bethlehem College students were on a Tranzit bus when a hose join that was part of the heating system failed, causing hot engine fluid to be sprayed inside the bus and burn them.
Now, Tranzit Group Ltd, the company that provides the school bus service to Bethlehem College, has been sentenced for failing to comply with a duty of care.
A summary of facts said one of the student’s burns meant skin came off in “large chunks”; another had to have ongoing medical treatment and rehabilitation. Two of the students missed a school camp because of their injuries.
A victim impact statement from one of the parents said their daughter missed a valuable opportunity to bond with students at the camp, having only recently started at the school.
With the risk of infection and the need for specialised dressings and care, she had been unable to attend and also had to have weeks off school.
Her confidence had been impacted, as had her aptitude for adventure and trying new things.
She was now anxious about bus travel and was always looking for potential damage or things that were “not right”.
The court heard from another parent who said her child had suffered severe and large burns to his arm, and minor burns to his foot and back. He was treated at Tauranga Hospital and had to have dressings changed three to four times a week, for four weeks, at his doctor’s practice.
He needed two weeks off school and couldn’t participate in sport for several months. He now had permanent scarring.
When he returned to the bus, it caused him anxiety and he would check under the seats to see if there were any radiators.
Two of the Bethlehem College students involved in the bus incident missed a school camp because of their injuries. Photo / Alex Cairns
What caused the incident
In the days before the incident, green liquid was seen coming from the heater at the front of the bus and the driver told a mechanic about it.
The mechanic realised the radiator was leaking in the heater in the bus, so the heater was removed and the two hose lines that had been coming in and out of it, were connected together with a brass fitting.
It was clamped together and the hoses were looped up and tucked to the side of the bus seats against the wall, out of the way.
The bus was road tested with no leaks found and returned to service.
An hour or so later, it picked up students from Bethlehem College and was heading out of Tauranga when the hoses burst and hot liquid was sprayed in the front section of the bus.
Tranzit Group Ltd, which was contracted by the Ministry of Education, was sentenced in the Tauranga District Court yesterday afternoon.
The company pleaded guilty to a Health and Safety Act charge which, in layman’s terms, meant it breached its duty to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that the health and safety of the students were not put at risk from the work carried out in its business (providing a school bus).
When it came to assessing the level of fine, Judge Melinda Mason looked at culpability.
WorkSafe had submitted this as a “medium” level of culpability – it said the modification done, in reattaching the hoses, had been inadequate.
While the system itself was not necessarily inadequate, the material must have been “perished” for the leak to have happened and there had been no casing around the hose.
Tranzit’s lawyers said the method used was acceptable and there was nothing to suggest it wasn’t the right thing to do, but acknowledged something had gone wrong because the hose failed.
There had been no industry knowledge of this as a known risk and Tranzit had not encountered anything like it previously.
After the incident, Tranzit took remedial steps.
Judge Mason said it was acknowledged there was no wilful or reckless element here because when the leak was noticed, it was repaired, the bus was taken off the road, and safety tests were done before it was put back to work.
“This was obviously insufficient because then the hose burst,” she said.
She set the culpability as just below medium and set the starting point for the fine at $70,000.
Tranzit received a 5% discount for its co-operation with the WorkSafe investigation, another 5% to account for it paying significant reparation to the victims, a further 5% for remorse and the offer to engage in a restorative justice conference, 5% for previous good character, an early guilty plea discount of 25%, and a remedial works discount of 5%.
That resulted in a 50% discount, bringing the fine to $35,000.
Tranzit would also pay WorkSafe’s legal costs of $2672.37.
Counsel for WorkSafe and Tranzit agreed a “project order” was appropriate, and commendable on the part of the company.
It essentially meant Tranzit representatives would do a presentation to a bus industry group, covering topics that included the basis of the conviction and lessons to be learned from it, heater systems on buses and the risks they present, and the need for further risk assessments.
WorkSafe would be provided with a copy of the presentation, and the court would be provided with confirmation this had been done, in the form of an affidavit.
The judge said the project would be “incredibly helpful” to the community and industry and she acknowledged that with a further 20% discount. Tranzit Group Ltd received an end fine of $21,000.
Judge Mason said it was clear the students had suffered trauma from the event, significant pain, and scarring.
There would be a long road to recovery, and that needed to be taken into account.
She ordered Tranzit to pay $10,000 in emotional harm reparation to two of the victims, who provided statements about the ongoing impacts.
The third victim had not given information to the court about the ongoing trauma so the judge said it was difficult for her to assess her ongoing need, ordering a payment of $7500 for that victim.
Hannah Bartlett is a Tauranga-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She previously covered court and local government for the Nelson Mail, and before that was a radio reporter at Newstalk ZB.
