Luton students hurt in fatal coach crash

Ricky Blennerhassett is recovering after the crash

Published on 06/02/2013 08:30

The family of young Luton man injured in a bus crash in India are anxiously awaiting his safe return to the UK.

Law student and amateur boxer Ricky Blennerhassett, 21, was travelling from Goa to Mumbai on Thursday night when the coach he and two friends were on was in collision with a lorry.

A number of people on board were killed in the crash, Ricky’s father Virgil, 46, told the Luton News yesterday.

Former Ashcroft student Ricky and friends Matthew McMunn and Daniel Freeley, who are both believed also to be from Luton, were trapped in the vehicle for more than half a hour.

Ricky suffered a dislocated knee, which will need to be operated on when he returns to the UK, while one of the others is understood to have suffered head and spinal injuries.

Mr Blennerhassett, general manager at Cougar Accident Repair in Crawley Green Road, said his son had met up with his friends in Goa and they were travelling to Mumbai to meet Mohan Dugar, a friend who had studied at the University of Bedfordshire.

“From what he’s said the coach just crashed into the HGV. They were trapped inside for quite a while and obviously they were worried the coach could go up in flames,” said Mr Blennerhassett, who received the news at work on Friday morning.

“It’s something that you always fear at the back of your mind, but he will be 22 next month and you have to let them do what they want to do.”

Ricky had been planning and saving for the trip for “ages”, his father said, and had graduated from Westminster University with a first in law at the end of 2012.

The Farley ABC boxer had embarked on the “trip of a lifetime” on January 14 and was not due to return until June.

Since the accident the group have been in a Mumbai hospital.

The worried father also praised the actions of Mohan, who had driven hundreds of miles to retrieve the party’s belongings from a police station close to where the accident happened.

And he added: “Given that there were fatalities we’re just glad they survived.”

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Luton students hurt in fatal coach crash

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