A great-grandmother was forced to have her foot amputated after she became trapped under a bus – when its hapless driver forgot to put the HANDBRAKE on.
Roma Wyburn, 89, was boarding the vehicle when it suddenly moved forward after driver Robert Wright left it in gear and forgot to apply the brake.
Firefighters lifted the bus to free her foot and she “begged” doctors not to amputate the limb – but surgery to save it failed.
Wright, 49, from Matson, Glos., was convicted of dangerous driving, banned from the road for a year and was fined #350 by magistrates when he appeared last year.
But his appeal against his conviction was allowed by Gloucester Crown Court after they ruled his driving was careless, not dangerous.
The court lifted the disqualification and fine and instead added seven penalty points to his licence and ordered him to pay #85 costs.
Allowing the appeal, Recorder James Watson QC said the court’s “hearts and sympathies” went out to Mrs Wyburn.
Mrs Wyburn has been fitted with a prosthetic lower leg but said she finds it painful to use for more than a couple of hours a day.
She said she agreed with the court’s decision but added: “What hurts me most when I look back on it is that I have not heard a word from him or the bus company to say sorry.”
The incident happened on December 23 2011 after the pensioner had just finished Christmas shopping.
Mrs Wyburn said she had just got on the bus, and was half on, half off the vehicle when it lurched forward causing her to fall over and trapping her foot.
“My head was near the step and I could see onto the bus. I looked and the driver remained in his seat, looking forward,” she said.
“I shouted to him to move the bus but he did nothing.
“He didn’t even look at me or say sorry. Other passengers came to help me and I put my head in a ladies lap and lay there.
“I think I passed out and I woke up in the ambulance.”
Giving evidence at the magistrates court, Wright said he was sure he had applied the handbrake but he had to accept he had not put the gears into neutral.
Weeping in the witness box, he said: “Everything really is a bit of a blur. My emotions were all over the place. I was distressed.”
