It is understood Jake was due to undergo surgery last night but it would take several days before the extent of his and Emily’s injuries were known.

By the time the two Bens returned to the bus, a team of adults was at work tending to the most seriously injured and trying to comfort the others who had escaped relatively unharmed.

It was unclear last night just how Dylan Wallace, 10, could have got out such a tiny window.

One reason may well have been that his twin sister Kaytlyn was sitting not far from the point of impact.

Dylan’s grandmother Wilma Wallace, was on the scene minutes after the sickening impact threw afternoon milking time into disarray.

“There was three of them. Apparently they stayed very calm and got children out, the ones that they could,” Mrs Wallace said of the young heroes.

“It’s something that you certainly don’t want to see happen, especially when you’ve got grandchildren involved.”

The twins’ younger brother William, 8, was also on the bus.

The trio’s mother Nicole was just down the road milking at the Blake’s property when she heard the news.

Within minutes, the former nurse and CERT member was among the parents on the bus.

Wilma Wallace worked to comfort Kaytlyn and another boy, Jacob Couch — two children rescuers were concerned about moving until paramedics arrived.

“I went into the bus and kept talking to them, just keeping them awake and keeping them alert,” Mrs Wallace said.

Kaytlyn was taken to Warrnambool hospital for treatment and while she was initially talking, she later became drowsy, prompting a CT scan which revealed bleeding on her brain.

An air ambulance was called and she too was flown to the Royal Children’s Hospital, where she remained last night in a stable condition, having also suffered a broken hand, Mrs Wallace said.

Her two brothers were by her bedside last night, along with their parents Peter and Nicole.

Warrnambool-based advanced life support paramedic Heath Butler was one of the first emergency workers on the scene.

“In the five years that I’ve been in Warrnambool, it’s certainly the biggest incident that I’ve been involved in, in terms of the number of casualties and the severity of their injuries,” he said.

“Although they (members of the public) were obviously stressed, they did a remarkable job of staying calm and in some cases we had parents helping treat their own kids.”

Warrnambool Buslines managing director Stephen Lucas spent much of yesterday on the phone to Melbourne media outlets.

“It’s devastating for the company and all the employees that work for the company, he said.

“It’s what we do every day, carrying children to and from school. Our job is to do it without accidents like this.”

The 64-year-old Nullawarre bus driver had come to know the children on the route, after driving it for five years, and driving buses for another five years before that, Mr Lucas said.

It was routine to enter the property to drop off the three siblings, before exiting from the driveway back onto Moreys Road.

The west-bound truck collided with the bus as it turned left onto Moreys Road.

“It’s the sort of route we travel on a lot,” Mr Lucas said.

“The road’s not the issue. The issue is how one of our vehicles with kids on board could have got itself in front of a bus.

‘‘We need to find out how that happened.”

Mr Lucas said while it would be preferable to fit seatbelts to school buses, the industry and State Government agreed that preventing accidents involving children boarding and exiting buses was a bigger problem and a more pressing funding priority.

The bus driver, who was taken to Warrnambool hospital, was later airlifted to Melbourne with leg injuries.

“We will wait for the findings of the investigation and if there’s any action we need to take to improve our processes or practices so we minimise the chances of this happening again.”

The Nullawarre school was open yesterday with parents, psychologists and counsellors there to comfort more than 30 pupils who attended class.

Two uninjured children involved in the crash briefly visited the school before returning home.

The school has two bus services covering the

northern and southern sides of the district.

Psychologists and counsellors were at the school yesterday to comfort more than 30 pupils who attended class.

Principal Wes Allen was notified of the crash just minutes after the alarm was raised.

“We were at the site for several hours monitoring the situation and doing what we could to assist.

“I’ve been principal here less than a year, but from what I’ve seen, the Nullawarre is a very strong, tight-knit community that have been resilient in the face of all this drama.”

Townspeople told The Standard that Moreys Road was not known as a dangerous thoroughfare.

“You’d get a couple of utes and the milk tankers go down there each day, but it’s a straight stretch of road.”

Senior Sergeant Paul Hargreaves was full of praise for the pupils involved in the helping the crash victims.

“We’ll have to go out to the school one day and shake their hands, because, I don’t know whether it was shock but the ones that were still able to walk and get around remained level-headed which is a real credit to them,” he said.