A school bus with 20 children on board collided with a car in Co Donegal yesterday and stopped inches from a 15ft drop into a river.
The children, aged from four to six, were travelling on their annual outing to an activity centre when the bus was in collision with a car at around 10.30am.
The crash occurred at a sharp bend on a narrow road half a mile from their school in the Donegal Gaeltacht.
Also on the 24-seater bus were a teacher, a parent, two teenage helpers and the driver.
All the children were wearing seatbelts when the head-on crash happened shortly after the coach crossed a bridge three miles from Gortahork on the road to Dunlewey.
Adults on the bus raised the alarm by mobile phone.
A fleet of six ambulances ferried the passengers and the injured car driver, Eamonn Cullen, to Letterkenny General Hospital. Mr Cullen's vehicle was badly damaged.
A spokeswoman for the hospital said 20 children and three adults were treated. Nine children and one adult were detained. Their condition was "comfortable".
Doctors and nurses from a medical centre six miles away at Falcarragh went to the scene. Two fire brigade units also attended, as did more than a dozen gardaí. The road was closed and traffic diverted.
Members of the Coastguard service at Bunbeg were also there to mark out a landing spot in case a helicopter was needed to fly any injured to hospital.
The hospital at Letterkenny put its emergency plan into operation as the injured were being transported from the scene.
The bus was taking children from Scoil Cnoc na Naomh in the townland of Doire Chonaire to Ionad Cois Locha - the Lakeside Centre - at Dunlewey. The centre has a farm, country crafts exhibitions, and a number of activities including go-karting.
Another bus left the school a short while earlier with older children on a day trip to Lifford Courthouse museum.
One of the first on the scene was school board treasurer Séamus MacGeidigh, regional manager of Radio na Gaeltachta. He was travelling between his office and his home when he came on the accident about 20 minutes after it happened.
He said: "There were other parents already there and there was quite a bit of panic. Some of them didn't know at first which of the two buses that had left the school was involved.
"There was a great feeling of relief when it was realised the injuries were mainly cuts and bruises and nobody was seriously hurt.
"But there is no doubt the children had a miraculous escape. The accident was on a very narrow stretch of road and the two vehicles, going in opposite directions, collided right on the bend which was as near a 90-degree turn as makes no difference.
"The bus was stopped literally inches from the edge of the road. Had it not stopped then it would have toppled over and down a 15ft drop into the river below." "
Mr MacGeidigh added that all the youngsters had been wearing seat-belts. He said: "There is no doubt that was a big factor in ensuring nobody was really seriously injured." He said his own nine-year-old daughter was with the older children on the other bus. Mr MacGeidigh paid tribute to the quick response and professionalism of the emergency services.