Bus stories 3 – Panic and the Little Fat Man

– On the journey from Santa Marta to Barranquilla, Colombia, February 1988 –

During my various stays in South America, I usually travelled by bus. There are large and more luxurious buses for tourists and better-off locals and smaller or simple and not necessarily comfortable, somewhat outdated adventurous vehicles. On this day, I sat in one such minibus full of 30 passengers next to a small fat man and enjoyed the landscape as usual. At first, we had driven along the coast, but now the road led a bit inland, past the Sierra Nevada mountains of Santa Marta, which also offered magnificent views from my seat at the window.

Along the magnificent Caribbean coast of Colombia

And that’s when I saw it! A lone car tyre was about to overtake our bus! Of course, anyone who has ever experienced something like this knows that one is more willing to believe in ghosts than the likelihood that one’s vehicle has lost a tyre at full speed. But that’s probably what happened because seconds later, the bus tilted to the right, and the driver struggled to keep the bus on track. The tyreless steering knuckle was dragging sparks across the tarmac. It smoked and stank terribly.

The passengers, who had been holding their breath at first, now panicked, screaming and shrieking. They were afraid that the bus would burst into flames and they would be caught in a deadly trap, which was a very realistic scenario.

But the bus driver knew how to help himself. He steered the hard-to-steer bus to the side of the road so that the steering knuckle no longer rubbed on the asphalt but on the sand. This action stopped the frictional heat and, thus also, the flying sparks. Consequently, the danger of fire was largely averted. Finally, he halted the bus, hanging askew on the side of the road. So far, so good!

The bus driver opened the door and asked all passengers to leave the bus.

Panic-stricken, 30 passengers now tried to get out through the only door to safety, together with their belongings. But, of course, the isle to the door was immediately wholly blocked, which increased the panic. There was excited pushing and shoving and loud, impatient urging of those in front to finally move on, clear the way, and move faster!

My little fat neighbour saw the way to the saving door blocked, and, driven by flight instincts, he tried to get out through the bus window. But in his panic, he had misjudged. The window was too small for his abdominal circumference, and he got hopelessly stuck. His upper body was sticking out of the bus. The lower half of his body hung, wriggling inside the bus. Nothing could be done, neither forward nor backwards.

Some passengers and I now tried to support him and push him outside. But that didn’t work. We also discussed whether the risk of injury to him would be too big if he fell onto the road. So we decided to pull him back into the bus. This, however, caused the little fat man in the window to panic. Determined, he fought back, bracing himself with his hands and whole upper body against the fellow passengers pulling him back into the supposedly burning bus.

We, who were tugging at his feet in the bus, talked at him. The passengers who, in the meantime, had gotten off the bus tried to talk some sense into him from outside. It was a massive palaver about saving the stuck little fat man. To no avail!

When I resignedly walked through the now empty aisle with my backpack to the bus door and got off, he was still hanging in the window.

Meanwhile, some passengers had recaptured the runaway tyre and brought it back. Other bus riders stopped and contributed muscle and some nuts to the repair.

As the journey continued, the little fat man sat next to me again, completely exhausted and very quiet.

Which way he had gone off the bus, I never knew.

(LL)