Survivors of 'bus trip from hell' break silence with a call for change

In the chaotic moments after the crash, Jason Junkeer's eyes latched onto his wife Sharyn's pink jacket, the fluffy one she bought especially for the wedding.

Sharyn's motionless body was half inside, half outside the overturned bus and Jason, who had been thrown into the windscreen, decided he had to exit the mangled wreck to help her.

But other wedding guests were struggling to be released from their jammed seatbelts.

Jason went to their aid. Then, he passed out.

When he awoke, Sharyn was gone.

As Jason recalls those confused and frantic moments during an interview with Australian Story, he is visibly affected.

He suffers post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the June 2023 crash that killed 10 people and left others with catastrophic injuries after a bus ferrying wedding guests in NSW's Hunter Valley veered out of control on a roundabout near Greta, tipped onto its side and smashed into a crash barrier.

But Jason composes himself and presses on, determined to share what he experienced that night after a revealing report from the NSW Office of Transport Safety Investigations (OTSI) was released.

"We need to step in and speak up and prevent these things from happening again," Jason tells Australian Story. "There's been some catastrophic errors in judgement."

By the time Jason regained consciousness, Sharyn had hauled herself back inside the bus. She pulled herself over seats towards the voice of a rescuer who had opened the manhole exit.

She told him: "I think there's something really wrong with my legs and my back."

The man reached for Sharyn's arms and, with "superhuman strength", pulled her out.

She would later learn she had been dragged across the bitumen on her hip "like a cheese grater", and her pelvis and lower back were broken.

Somehow, she walked about 20 metres from the bus — barefoot because her high heels had disintegrated, leaving just the straps around her ankles — and collapsed.

She screamed for Jason. He was soon by her side, helped by the same rescuer. The pair clung to each other and cried.

"That was a very powerful moment when we both realised that we had escaped," Sharyn says.

The fact that others did not escape is profoundly felt by the Junkeers and the source of ongoing grief.

"There are other victims [and] 10 families who have lost people here and who are so deeply affected by this," Sharyn says. "I never want to be seen to be speaking on behalf of anyone else."

What Sharyn and Jason want is action.

'He's coming in hot': Survivors recount crash

It had been a stunning wedding on a crisp winter's day amid vineyards in the hamlet of Lovedale.

Sharyn and Jason had travelled from Melbourne with Sharyn's brother, Laurie Healey, and his wife, Emma, to celebrate the wedding of Sharyn and Laurie's cousin, Mitchell Gaffney to Madeleine Edsell.

In a bid to "do the responsible thing", says Sharyn, Mitch organised a bus to take guests to and from the venue.

Spirits were high as the wedding guests boarded the bus to go home at about 11pm.

The Junkeers sat at the front, near the driver, Brett Button, a then 58-year-old man with seven years' experience driving buses.

He was chatty, and puzzled the Junkeers with his disinhibited style, making disparaging comments about police and calling an overtaking driver a "penis head".

About 11.30pm, the bus approached the roundabout at the Branxton interchange near Greta.

Jason looked at Sharyn and said, "He's coming in hot". Sharyn recalls Jason calling for Button to stop.

Says Jason: "As he enters the roundabout, it started to lean and it just kept leaning and leaning.

"I remember thinking around this point, I would expect brakes to be applied or speed to come off, but none of that happened.

"I can still see Brett struggling with the wheel … then the wheels came off and the back started to go. And I remember thinking, 'This is not going to end well.'"

The bus tipped and slid into a guardrail.

Button survived with minor injuries. The OTSI report found he was unable to negotiate the right-hand corner at 56.48km/h, the speed the bus was travelling in the moments before it tipped. The report found a speed above 47km/h was likely to lead to a rollover.

He had taken more than his prescribed dose of the opioid tramadol, which he was using to relieve back pain.

He was charged with 10 counts of manslaughter, later downgraded after a plea deal to 10 counts of dangerous driving occasioning death.

Button pleaded guilty to 25 other charges and was sentenced to 32 years' jail, with a non-parole period of 24 years.

When Matt Mullen heard the sentence, which was heftier than he had anticipated, he felt numb.

He and his wife Leanne lost their 26-year-old daughter, Rebecca, a junior doctor and their "sunshine", in the crash.

"I don't know whether I expected to feel happy, to celebrate it, but it was just numbness … It didn't change anything."

The Mullens, like the Junkeers and Healeys, know Button was driving recklessly and are grateful he is being punished.

But they all believe that a failure to stop Button driving, despite reason to do so, and other systemic failures, are also to blame.

Says Leanne: "The crash was a result of a perfect storm of mistakes, perfect storm of a lack of accountability, system failures, processes that don't work properly and a whole mismatch of agencies that aren't working together."

Driver checks 'flippant', court hears

Button's back pain and longstanding reliance on tramadol led to him being sent to a pain management clinic in 2022 as part of a WorkCover claim.

The subsequent report, which noted "an opiate dependence disorder with features of vulnerability to addiction", was sent to his then employer CDC NSW. The bus company suspended Button from driving in June 2022.

Then, the checks and balances started breaking down.

On October 19, Button was to have an independent medical assessment before being allowed to return to work.

He resigned that day. Later, he applied for a job with Linq Buslines.

The OTSI report found CDC NSW did not disclose Button's health issues to Linq because, under privacy legislation, it could not give other companies health information about a driver without their consent.

Linq's reference check of Button was far from thorough and criticised as "flippant" by the judge in a recent court case against the company.

And although there were 12 complaints upheld against Button during his six years at CDC — and one compliment — this was not communicated to Linq.

The OTSI report found no record of Transport for NSW (TfNSW) being advised of Button's history of substance misuse, either by him, his GP or previous employer.

Tramadol is not a banned substance for bus driving, although it is for pilots, while train drivers must notify TfNSW they are taking it.

In fact, the OTSI report found "there was no defined list of medications that commercial [bus] drivers within NSW were prohibited from taking or which were required to be declared". 

Because of this, assessing a drug's impact on driving was left primarily with the prescribing doctor and the driver himself.

Sharyn, who works in the pharmaceutical industry, was stunned. In her opinion, "someone who has a drug dependency should not be driving a bus".

"I feel like there needs to be some sort of compulsory reporting … That if someone in the medical profession knows that someone they're treating has an issue with alcohol or any drugs and they're driving buses or trucks, then they should have to report that somewhere."

In August this year, the now-defunct Linq Buslines was fined $650,000 after pleading guilty to breaching National Heavy Vehicle laws.

"I feel very strongly that the penalties are a slap on the wrist and really don't send a message out there to the bus industry of the importance of managing their drivers," Matt Mullen says.

Both TfNSW and the National Transport Commission are reviewing OTSI's recommendations about the safe management of medications.

NSW Roads Minister Jenny Aitchison supports a list of notifiable medications being included on the TfNSW medical assessment forms and expects any changes to be made within the next 12 months.

Roundabout design questioned

The NSW government has accepted, or accepted in principle, all 21 recommendations relating to TfNSW. Another 20 recommendations relate to other authorities.

The OTSI recommendations include reviewing the design of large, or non-standard roundabouts, such as the elliptically-shaped Branxton interchange near Greta. 

It is a subject close to the heart of the groom's father, John Gaffney, who is a well-known road design engineer with decades of experience.

"If you're going to design like this, you need other mechanisms in play to reduce the speed, such as advanced rollover signage and a 40km speed limit on the approach," he says.

Austroads, which advises all levels of government on road design, is revising its guidance on elliptical roundabouts.

The roundabout did meet standards. But the OTSI report found the oval shape creates a tightening curve as a driver navigates it, requiring adjustments to speed and steering.

"In my opinion, the slope of the road was definitely a contributing factor to the crash," John says.

At the time of the crash, there were no signs to reduce speed on Button's approach to the roundabout. A slow-down sign has since been erected some distance from the entry point.

'A miracle we're still alive'

Then, there is the seatbelt issue. They were fitted on the bus and there was a sign telling passengers to put them on.

But Button, who wore his, did not instruct passengers to wear them, which was part of the bus company's protocols. Just six of the 35 passengers were wearing seatbelts.

Following the crash, the federal transport department reviewed seatbelt regulations and has now approved requirements that buses have audio and visual messages instructing passengers to wear them.

However, the OTSI report found it will take about 25 years for most buses to comply.

Ms Aitchison says a "buckle up on buses" campaign was rolled out across NSW in 2024, acknowledging the need for a cultural shift.

As far as the Junkeers and Rebecca's parents are concerned, being told by a driver to put on a seatbelt is essential.

Says Sharyn: "If more people were wearing them, then I think the outcome would have been different."

Sharyn and Jason know how lucky they were to survive. Neither were wearing seatbelts.

"I just think it's a miracle that we are both alive," Sharyn says. "It does weigh on both of us that we know there are other families that are not in that situation."

But it has been a long road to recovery. Much of the remaining flesh on Sharyn's hip wound had to be removed, requiring a skin graft that took months to heal. She needed rehabilitation to walk again.

Jason has a brain injury and deep psychological wounds from what he witnessed after returning to the bus to look for Emma and Laurie. Emma was badly injured but survived.

"I saw some things I wish I'd never seen," Jason says.

He has been unable to return to work.

Matt and Leanne Mullen have lost a daughter; a bright, friendly, popular young woman dedicated to healing others.

But, says Leanne: "For me, it's important to be Rebecca's voice in this and make sure we do whatever we can to make sure this doesn't happen in the future."

The OTSI report has given a blueprint for change. It's very detailed, says Sharyn, but recommendations and governments saying they will act is only half the battle.

"We really want to see it through," Sharyn says. "Not just let it get forgotten about because Mr Button's been sentenced … That's just too simplistic to look at it as just being a case against Mr Button.

"We want those other issues to be addressed and we want changes to happen and actually be implemented to protect all of us."

Watch the Australian Story 'The Road Back' Monday 8pm (AEDT) on ABCTV and ABC iview.