Correggio “I saw smoke coming out of the back of the bus, so I made the passengers get off immediately.” She had no hesitations, Giuliano Aliberti, 31 years old, the driver of the bus that caught fire in Piazzale 2 Agosto on Wednesday morning just before 8am. Seeing the smoke coming from the overheated part, he made the students who were still on the vehicle get out, an articulated bus nicknamed “biscione” among the kids, made up of two parts assembled together. The driver also took a great risk, being himself on board the bus, and yesterday morning he was interviewed by local police officers, then he turned to the doctors of Santa Maria Nuova to check his health conditions , since he had breathed the smoke released by the dense black cloud.
«Everything happened in a short time, in a period of between 20 and 30 seconds in those few moments I did everything possible to save the passengers – explains Giuliano Aliberti –. I was arriving from Fabbrico, in Correggio in Piazzale 2 Agosto: at that moment I noticed that smoke was coming out of the back of the bus. I immediately opened all three doors and made all the students get out and all the people who were nearby move away. It was a moment of heavy traffic: there must have been 2,000 people, also because many had stopped to film with their cell phones.”
«I immediately grabbed the fire extinguishers – adds Aliberti –. I still couldn’t see the flames, but I realized that the two fire extinguishers weren’t working either, so I called the fire brigade. Then I alerted the Seta operations center and stopped a local police patrol with which we removed the boys. After the deposition by the local police officers, they rushed to do the tests in hospital and luckily they went well.”
