Aussie woman details horrifying text message sent after fatal bus crash in Italy

An Australian woman has revealed the shocking response from a bus company at the centre of a fatal crash that left passengers stranded in the Italian countryside for hours.

Sinead Curry spoke with Today from Rome where she is still in significant pain after the bus she was travelling on flipped into an embankment near the town of Avellino, 50km from Naples, on Sunday morning.

“We’re not holding up well. None of us are OK,” she said on Wednesday.

Three days after the terrifying incident, she says she has been let down by the company, FlixBus, at every turn.

“Their response has just been too a little too late at every single turn,” she said.

An Australian woman who was involved in a fatal bus crash in Italy – which reportedly killed one person – has made a desperate call for help after receiving little more than a meal voucher from the company that owned the vehicle “for the inconvenience”.

“The bus crash happened at around 3.45am, we didn’t hear from them until 7.43am.”

She said she received an automated text from FlixBus saying, “We hear you have been in a crash. Hope you’re OK. Here is a 10 euro meal replacement and non-alcoholic beverage replacement voucher.”

She said passengers heard nothing for another hour before a second text arrived saying a replacement bus was on its way to the crash site.

“All of us were terrified, we were not going to get on a bus,” she said.

Another two messages were received at 9am and 11am, advising the passengers to call a number that “rang out” when it was called.

Ms Curry said she was “furious” when she discovered that the bus driver had given a statement to police and she still had not been able to speak with a representative from the company.

She also went into detail about the moment the bus flipped into the embankment while most of the passengers were asleep.

She said she woke while being tossed out of her seat as the bus rolled multiple times, with the windows exploding upon impact.

“Immediately after the crash, everyone was crying and screaming in their own native language,” she said.

It is understood the bus crashed into an existing multiple vehicle crash. One man was reportedly killed.

Ms Curry said the passengers were still “crawling out of the wreckage” when another two cars slammed into the bus.

“I’m still in pain in my face, my nose and the back of my head as well as my neck and my back,” she said.

The ordeal was made worse due to the language barrier which meant she had to point to where she was in pain to indicate where medical staff should X-ray her.

At least one person was killed in the crash and another 14 injured, according to a tweet from the local fire and rescue department, Vigili del Fuoco.

“[There were] 38 passengers on board, and 5 cars [involved in the crash], the lifeless body of a man was found, 14 [have been] injured,” they said on Sunday.