THE MAN who held the hand of the York bus crash victim as he lay dying has spoken for the first time about the shocking events.

Ashley Neal, 33, was walking home from a friend's house when he saw the bus smash into the wall of The Churchill Hotel, in Bootham, before striking the parapet of a railway bridge, early on April 16.

Mr Neal, of Horner Street, York, climbed into the wreckage, turned off the engine, put the handbrake on and sat with Mohamed Mahmoud Hussein Eltahtawy until the emergency services arrived.

He said: "I saw the bus slewing fast off the road and crash. Some lads were running out of the wrecked side and I saw a man trapped on the floor, face down.

"At the time I assumed it must be the driver. I shouted at a taxi driver parked on the corner to ring the police and paramedics and checked the man's pulse.

"I didn't dare move him, but he was still breathing, so I just held his hand. There was really little else I could do apart from hold his hand and talk to him, in case he could hear me. But I honestly don't believe he was conscious.

"He still had a pulse when I checked it, but unfortunately it faded away before the paramedics arrived."

Mr Neal said he stayed with Mr Eltahtawy for about four minutes more.

Mr Eltahtawy's girlfriend, Carol Knowles, said she was extremely grateful to Mr Neal.

"I don't think I can describe in words what I want to say to him," she said.

"It's very comforting to me that Mohamed wasn't alone when he died."

Updated: 11:14 Monday, April 26, 2004