Ten lives lost. Multiple communities mourning. What should have been an end to the happiest of days, celebrating the love of a young couple who came together with a shared love and talent for sport, has turned into the cruelest of tragedies.
The weather was beautiful in the Hunter Valley on Sunday, warm for Winter, with blue skies. A perfect day for a wedding amongst the rolling hills, where Maddy Edsell and Mitchell Gaffney brought their families, their teammates, and their communities together.
We can picture this wedding because many of us would have attended such weddings or even had such weddings ourselves. If not in the Hunter Valley, then the Clare Valley in South Australia, Margaret River in Western Australia, or across the many spectacular and scenic wedding and function centres this country boasts.
Hundreds of weddings took place over the long weekend in Australia, many at destinations similar to Wandin Estate winery in Lovedale, where guests would come from nearby towns and cities, from interstate, and possibly overseas. They would take the extra public holiday as a time to get back home, possibly getting in a breakfast or brunch with guests to discuss what occurred the night before. Back to families, back to careers, back to various ambitions, hopes and dreams for the future.
Indeed, Maddy and Mitchell should have woken Monday morning in a haze of post-wedding bliss, sharing fun stories of the night before and ready to take on their lives together. For them, for everyone this tragedy touches, no amount of words can express how unfair the horrific twist of fate that came in the final hour of their wedding day. It really was, as prime minister Anthony Albanese said on learning about the crash a tragedy “so cruel, and so sad, and so unfair.”
Thirty-five people boarded the bus from Wandin Estate, leaving the wedding venue on the organised transport to return to their accommodation – taking a trip, again, similar to what so many who’ve attended weddings in such places have done before them. As the bus crashed at Greta while approaching a roundabout, ten people lost their lives. Another 20 were injured, a number of them critically. First responders confronted the traumatic scene while contending with difficult, heavy fog. There have been – and will be more – stories of heroics from those responders and also from the surviving passengers we’ll learn more from in the coming days.
We are yet to learn the specifics of how the bus turned over and how it resulted in such a significant loss of life, with the 58 year old driver charged with ten counts of dangerous driving occasioning death, and police stating today he was driving “too quick” for the roundabout he was approaching, and in a way that was “inconsistent with conditions.”
Now on Tuesday morning, as the driver faces court, we are learning about those unaccounted for in the wake of the disasters, in which we know ten people lost their lives and two remain in intensive care.
There is, as Nine papers are reporting today, Nadene and Kyah, a mother and daughter who were both involved in the Singleton Roosters Australian Rules club. Nadene was the president, Kyah had recently been selected as part of the Sydney Swans, to represent the Women’s Summer Series round.
Also unaccounted for is husband and wife Andrew and Lynana Scott, also part of the Singleton Roosters Australian Rules club. Andrew celebrated his 100th game with the club in April 2022. Lynana was once mining superintendent, and a former graduate mining engineer with Rio Tinto in the Hunter Valley.
Police said this morning those on the bus were aged from their 20s to 60s. Mothers and daughters. Couples. Young parents. Teammates. Friends.
It is a senseless loss of life that has destroyed families, sporting teams, families and friendships, a tragedy that has spilled entire communities into mourning that will never be the same again. It’s a reminder to cherish the ones you love.