Coach horror: South Wootton mum sues
A SINGLE mum from South Wootton has joined forces with a group of tourists who were caught up in a fatal coach crash to launch a legal bid for compensation.
The holidaymakers were travelling between Malaysia and Singapore when their coach driver lost control and the vehicle plunged down a ravine in heavy rain.
Now, Gill Collier (48) and 12 other UK-based tourists who were on the bus are suing package holiday operators Explore Worldwide for unlimited damages for their injuries after the crash on May 28, 2006.
Gill Collier, who has two daughters, now aged 21 and 17, had booked the 17-day holiday exploring Malaysia and Singapore as a solo trip to try to help her through the grief of losing both her parents. The crash happened two days before she was due to fly home.
The bus was travelling from Tanjung Gemok to Singapore, according to a High Court writ.
Driver Ching Hock Chye was trying to overtake a car as he approached a bend, but lost control when another vehicle came around the corner towards him, the writ says.
It claims that throughout the trip he had been driving dangerously fast, repeatedly overtaking vehicles at speed and on corners and he failed to concentrate on what he was doing and drove too close to the vehicles in front.
He lost control of the bus, which drove through a crash barrier and off the road, plunging into a ravine, the court will hear.
Ms Collier, of Blackthorn Road, told the Lynn News she was knocked unconscious by the crash, had to have stitches in her face and suffered a leg injury.
Others were left with serious and multiple broken bones and ongoing psychological distress and the coach driver and a young local boy were killed.
Process engineer at Holbeach based Bakkavor Pizzeria Ms Collier said: "Both of my parents had died and I just wanted to get away for a bit of a rest.
"It was the first time I had ever been on a trip like that, normally on holiday I would just be lying on a beach.
"It was a bit of an unreal experience really. It was just not something you expect to happen but you have no control over it.
"It is scary because you are abroad more than anything."
The thirteen tourists are suing Explore Worldwide and say the Farnborough-based company is responsible for the coach driver's alleged negligence.
Other passengers are understood to have launched their own independent claims.
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