'Someone was watching over me' - miracle escape as bus wrecks Shipley Eyewear Opticians

Dramatic scenes unfolded in Shipley town centre yesterday afternoon when a Yorkshire Tiger bus, coming from Market Square, careered through the front of Shipley Eyewear Opticians on Kirkgate.

A taxi was also involved, with pictures from the scene showing a Volkswagen Passat wedged at the side of the bus.

Nazmin Aktar, 37, locked up and left for lunch at noon, just five minutes before the shocking scenes unfolded.

She rushed back after hearing people talk about the crash in a shop, only to find the single-deck bus had smashed through the opticians, which has been in the town for around four-and-a-half years.

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“Everybody was saying somebody was watching over me,” she said.

“If I was in there, I would have been sitting at that desk and apparently it has hit that, so if I was there, I would have been hit.

“It’s shocking.”

Investigation into Shipley horror crash begins 

Her boss, Hasrat Khazmi, 35, said the opticians would be closed for at least two to three weeks and she was “shocked and surprised” by what had happened, being alerted to the crash by stacks of missed calls on her phone.

Others have spoken of the moment the smash unfolded.

Susan Gray, 56, said: “It was just like an enormous bang or an explosion or something.

“Something that made everyone stop in the shops and we all went to look outside.”

She said people quickly rallied and “were coming from everywhere” to see what they could do to help.

Two of those people were Mathew Ward, 24, and Paul Rhodes, 41, who quickly jumped in to help in the immediate aftermath of the crash.

Mr Ward, an early years practitioner, was on his way to work in Guiseley.

He said: “I was just in Iceland, in the square, when I heard a big bang.

“As a first aider, I ran over to make sure everyone was alright, because that’s second nature to me, to help people.

“As I got to the scene, people were getting out, so I just helped with that.

“I was just making sure everyone was alright as they got off the bus.”

Mr Ward said he was then worried about the driver and got on the bus to make sure he was okay.

He said “As we got in near the front of the bus, the driver got up and walked out and then someone said ‘is there anyone in the shop?

“The front screen of the bus is totally off, so we just walked in, checked under the bus, made sure no-one was in there.”

The pair said the store looked to be “completely destroyed”, with the bus going right up to the desk and pushing it to the back of the store.

“I’m relieved that everyone was alright,” said Mr Ward.

Ashley France, 50 was around the corner when he heard a loud bang.

He said: “My son was getting lunch and he came back and said you better come look at this - there was about 200 people crowded round.”

He added: “There’s seats for customers by the window, imagine if the receptionist sees this bus coming - it could have been worse.Ladbrokes next door, my son works there but by the grace of God he wasn’t in today.

“An old person could have been walking past. It’s just luck, complete luck, it could have been full with people.”

Andrea Naylor, 52, was with her 17-year-old daughter Emma, when the crash unfolded before their eyes.

“I just ran to help and get people off the bus,” she said.

“They were all shaken up.

“There was people running around everywhere.

“It’s not the kind of thing you expect to see.”

She said the the taxi’s airbags had activated and the driver had got out, but was shaken.

There were delays in and around the area and to public transport as emergency services worked at the scene.

A Bradford Council representative was also in attendance.

Firefighters carefully winched the bus from the smashed up front of the opticians.

Shocked crowds watched from behind the extensive police cordon as firefighters got to work.

When the bus was eventually removed, revealing the destruction and chaos the crash had caused in the store, a chorus of claps and cheers broke out.