Following a tragic bus crash after her wedding which claimed the lives of 10 guests, the bride's reaction has been revealed and it is truly gut-wrenching.
The tragedy occurred at around 11:30 PM as a bus took guests from the wedding of Maddy Edsell and Mitchell Gaffney to their accommodation in Singleton, Australia, as reported by 7News.
The newlyweds, who were not on the bus at the time of the accident, are professional Australian rules football players.
Gaffney played for the Singleton Roosters while Edsell was an ever-present player for the Hunter Valley women's team before moving to Melbourne to link up with the Roosterettes.
Of those on board the bus, 10 tragically lost their lives and 25 were hospitalized after the vehicle crashed onto its side.
Speaking to 7News, Edsell's cousin Kynan Stanford revealed the bride's gut-wrenching reaction when she was told about the news.
"[She said] get me there, I need to go and we were like, no, you don’t need to go," Stanford said while adding: "The bride was pretty much kicking down the door trying to get in the car."
The couple had been enjoying what guests described as a "fairytale wedding" earlier in the evening and had waved to their guests as they arrived at the reception in a 1950s convertible Volkswagen Beetle that Edsell's father had restored.
It's understood that there were 36 passengers on board the bus at the time of the accident on Wine Country Drive, and initial investigations have revealed that the driver may have been driving "too fast".
The driver, 58-year-old Brett Andrew Button, has since been charged with 10 counts of dangerous driving occasioning death, including driving manner dangerous, and negligent driving (occasioning death), per 7News.
Investigations are ongoing, but former crash scene investigator Peter Bellion spoke to News.com.au,where he explained why he thought the number of fatalities was so high.
Bellion said: "It’s a typical heavy vehicle rollover where a heavy vehicle has gone into some sort of turn too fast, it’ll tip over the outside lip.
"Obviously the passenger side is coming into contact with the road surface and also the guard railing, they’re sources of contact for anybody inside the vehicle. But then you also have the fact that anybody that’s on the driver side unrestrained, they could also fall to the passenger side and end up with some pretty bad if not fatal injuries."
Bellion noted that many of the passengers may have been standing in the aisle, or not wearing seatbelts.
An official GoFundMe page has been launched following a number of fakes being set up - as Singleton AFC seeks to raise money for all those affected by the tragedy.
At the time of writing, and only 13 hours after the fundraising page was set up, it has raised over AU$100,000 from 1400 donors.
