All the victims of the Hunter bus crash have been formally identified following eight days of meticulous work by forensic officers.
Ten people lost their lives when a coach transporting wedding guests crashed at a roundabout on Wine Country Drive near the Hunter Expressway off-ramp at Greta on Sunday, June 11.
On Tuesday investigators met with State Coroner Teresa O’Sullivan to decide whether the identities of the deceased could be formally changed from ‘unaccounted for’ to ‘identified’.
After a painstaking process between authorities including police, forensic pathologists and disaster victim identification experts, they were formally identified.
The individual’s who died in the crash were: Andrew and Lynan Scott, Nadene McBride, Kyah McBride, Kane Symons, Tori Cowburn, Bec Mullen, Zach Bray, Andrew Craig and Darcy Bulman.
‘Today, officers attached to the Forensic Evidence & Technical Services – with assistance from other specialist police – finalised the Disaster Victim Identification process of the 10 passengers who died on board the coach crash in Greta,’ NSW Police said.
The process identification took more than a week due to authorities’ obligation to use ‘disaster victim identification’, a protocol in place to ensure no human remains are incorrectly identified after a mass casualty event.
The specific protocols rely on ante-mortem information being matched with post-mortem information.
When the identities were confirmed, family liaison officers then broke the news to devastated relatives of all of the victims and the process of formally returning their remains commenced.
Many of the ten victims were connected to the Singleton Roosters AFL club including captain of the Singleton Roosterettes Tori Coburn, team coach Nadene McBride, her daughter Kyah and her daughter’s boyfriend, Kane Symons.
Singleton husband and wife Andrew and Lynan Scott were also among the casualties and they both played for Singleton Roosters.
Darcy Bulman, a 30-year-old investigator for the Australian Securities and Investments Commission from Melbourne, was also killed.
Rebecca Mullen, a junior doctor and Singleton local working at Calvary Mater Newcastle Hospital, also died in the crash.
Others who lost their lives were Zach Bray, who was working as a mining engineer in the Hunter region, and engineer Angus Craig who had worked with the mining company BHP in Queensland.
