Quick-thinking passenger stops tour bus plunging over cliff
A tourist stopped a bus from plunging over a cliff in the Austrian Alps by slamming on the brakes after the driver passed out.
According to the AFP news agency, the vehicle was travelling through the mountains in the Tyrolean Alps with 21 passengers on board when the driver, 76, collapsed.
As the bus continued towards a steep cliff, the passenger, a French tourist, leapt from his seat and slammed on the brakes.
The bus crashed into a barrier at the side of the road and came to a stop, hanging over the cliff edge a short distance from a 100m drop.
A local police spokesman described the situation as ‘a hair’s breadth from catastrophe’.
Lisa
Lisa joined Travel Weekly nearly 25 years ago as technology reporter and then sailed around the world for a couple of years as cruise correspondent, before becoming deputy editor. Now freelance, Lisa writes for various print and web publications, edits Corporate Traveller’s client magazine, Gateway, and works on the acclaimed Remembering Wildlife series of photography books, which raise awareness of nature’s most at-risk species and helps to fund their protection.
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