A schoolboy died from head injuries when a coach full of children crashed down a 20-foot slope before overturning.
Oliver Price, 10, died when a coach carrying up to 70 pupils and staff plunged down a steep slope on a return journey from an end-of-term trip on Thursday last week.
The Minehead Middle School pupil was killed when the coach left the A396 at Cutcombe Hill near Minehead, Somerset, ending up in the ditch.
The first to arrive at the scene was an off-duty firefighter, who rescued trapped children and teachers at about 3.15pm.
Now a coroner has confirmed that the youngster died from catastrophic head injuries inside the wreckage.
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Vanessa McKinlay, the assistant coroner for Somerset, said: ‘He was aged 10 at the time of his death and he was a student.
‘Oliver’s death was confirmed at 5pm on July 17 by the attending paramedic at the A396 at Timberscombe, near Minehead.
‘The brief circumstances of the death are that Oliver was a student of Minehead Middle School who was being taken back to Minehead by coach with a number of other children and staff having been on a trip to Exmoor Zoo.
‘The coach came off the A396 road at Timberscombe into a steep wooded area.
‘Oliver was found seated in the coach with his seat belt on. His death was confirmed by the attending paramedic.
‘Oliver’s provisional cause of death is head injury pending results of laboratory investigations.’
Injured children rescued from the mangled bus were taken to hospitals in the region.
Several of them were able to return home over the weekend, but two children and three adults remain in hospital.
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