School outing in Morni hills turns nightmare for Malerkotla students

For Class 11 student Vir Davinder, an outing to Morni Hills in Panchkula turned out to be a nightmare after the bus in which he along with his friends was travelling rolled 100 feet down a hill in the Tikkar Taal area on Saturday.

Luckily, the 15-year-old escaped with minor injuries. All boys, the students of a private school in Malerkotla, exited the overturned bus one after the other. Nearly 100 students of Classes 9 to 12 had embarked on the day-long trip with their teachers in two separate buses for boys and girls.

“We left the home early morning and visited the Morni fort first. We were on way to Tikkar Taal when the bus skidded off the road. It overturned and we were all bruised and jittery,” recalled Vir Davinder.

Dilpreet, another student, who suffered a nose injury said, “There was a thud, which seemed to be a normal sound during a bus commute. The bus suddenly picked speed. Initially I did not understand what has happened, but then blood started oozing out of my nose and we exited the bus one by one.”

The students, many with bloodied clothes, came out and sat in the open trying to come to terms with the situation. While the injured were taken to Civil Hospital in Panchkula’s Sector 6, the teachers shifted the remaining students to a nearby resort.

The students sat in a huddle with glum faces. Some of them sat still, gazing ahead with their eyes wide open, as the teachers went around in circles repeatedly counting the students and collecting documents from them.