‘The help is there’: what it’s like to survive a bus crash

‘You never drive past without thinking of it, ever’ … the scene of the Grafton bus crash in August 1989. Photograph: Anton Cermak/The Sydney Morning Herald

It’s been more than three decades since 21 people died in a bus crash along the Pacific Highway – but every time David Bancroft drives past the site, he smells pineapple juice.

It’s a fleeting reminder of the carnage he witnessed as a reporter for a local radio station when he arrived at the scene of the crash one October morning in 1989.