By Mary-Anne Gontsana
Thirteen Tafelberg High School pupils were injured and their driver killed when the minibus in which they were travelling hit a stationary bus in Koeberg Road, Brooklyn, on Monday morning.
The pupils were being taken to their school in Sea Point, where they were to write exams.
Netcare 911 spokeswoman Lauren Copley said paramedics found the driver, Victor Hendriks, trapped in the minibus. He was declared dead by other emergency personnel assisting at the scene.
Hendriks was from Parow. He was 56.
Seven of the pupils were taken to the Milnerton Medi-Clinic and six to the Life Vincent Pallotti Hospital.
Milnerton Medi-Clinic spokeswoman Tania Stroobants said the pupils attended to there had been treated for minor injuries.
They ranged in age from 13 to 18 years.
Those taken to Vincent Pallotti were in a stable condition, said spokeswoman Sue Scholtz.
Milnerton police spokeswoman Daphne Dell said details of the accident had yet to be established.
There were no brake marks.
"On interviewing witnesses at the scene, most of them said Hendriks had looked sick while behind the wheel."
Eugene Ronne, whose 13-year-old son received facial injuries and broke a leg, said a woman who had been driving behind the minibus had told him Hendriks appeared to have had a heart attack.
Copley, however, said that according to paramedics there was no sign that Hendriks had suffered a heart attack.
An autopsy would be performed.
ER24 spokesman Tristan Wadeley said the jaws of life and other tools had been used to free Hendricks.
Ronne said he had received a "please call me" SMS from his son about 7.30am.
"I knew something was wrong and I immediately phoned.
"While he was telling me what had happened I could hear the sirens from the ambulance in the background."
Tafelberg High principal Lionel Benecke said the pupils were in grades 8 to 11. One of them had told the school there had been an accident.
They had missed their exams, but their marks would be taken from the work they had done during the year, Benecke said. Counselling would be available for pupils and teachers at the school.