Man dies on bus, passengers panic

Man dies on bus, passengers panic

JAKARTA (JP): The death of a 77-year-old man on an intercity
bus Saturday sent other passengers into a panic, forcing the
driver to stop at Cawang tollgate so those on board could get
off.

The man, Sujono, a resident of Cililitan Besar in East
Jakarta, was heading for the city on a Putra Rafflesia bus which
plies the Bengkulu-Jakarta-Bandung route.

The bus driver, Zulkifli, said a member of the crew found
Sujono dead when the bus was approaching the Cawang interchange
in East Jakarta.

Zulkifli said Sujono, who was sitting in the front row, behind
the driver's seat, appeared healthy when the bus departed from
Bengkulu on Friday afternoon.

"When my codriver woke up everybody who wanted to get off at
the Pulogadung Bus Terminal, before we continued our journey to
Bandung, he noticed that the victim was no longer breathing."

The panic was sparked by a passenger who shouted: "Bau mayat
(smelly dead body) ...Bau mayat!!!"

Upon realizing a person had died on the bus, the other
passengers became frightened too, Zulkifli said.

He continued driving the bus along Jl. Prumpung, where he
organized for another bus to transport the frightened passengers
to the Pulogadung terminal.

After all the passengers had disembarked, Zulkifli and the
three crew members drove the bus to East Jakarta Police precinct.

"We didn't touch anything, not even his bag to look for his
identity. My codriver only covered the man's face with a sarong.
We thought that it was better to hand it over to the police," he
said.

Sujono's body was sent to Cipto Mangunkusumo General Hospital
in Central Jakarta for a postmortem examination. (emf)