A paramedic from Bradford helped in the dramatic rescue of terrified children trapped on a school bus in the Minnesota bridge disaster, it emerged today.

Liz Dewes, 35, was among emergency crews who were first on the scene of the tragedy in Minneapolis in the USA which claimed five lives with eight people still missing.

The eight-lane Interstate 35W bridge, a major artery, was undergoing repairs when it buckled during an evening rush hour, plunging dozens of vehicles into the Mississippi River, some falling on top of one another.

Speaking from the US hospital where some casualties were still being treated, Liz said the scene she encountered was "like a film set".

The former pupil at Salt Grammar School, Baildon, who moved to the US to become a paramedic about ten years ago, came to the aid of about 60 terrified children on the school bus which plunged into the river during the five-hour rescue attempt.

The school bus driver had been taking the youngsters home after a visit to a water park when disaster struck.

He bravely managed to scramble to the back of the bus and open the emergency exit, allowing emergency crews and members of the public to rescue the children.

Liz, whose parents live near Shipley, said: "We were the first ones to go in and help them when we realised how serious the situation was.

"The bus was just about at the far side of the river when it dropped straight down.

"It stayed on a section of road but the road was in the water and was pinned against a concrete barrier in the water.

"The driver had to get the children out of the back door because there was a vehicle on fire in the next lane.

"There was a lot of black smoke but the kids managed to get out with the help of tons of people - the public and the emergency services.

"The children were amazing. They were really scared but we managed to corral them into a Red Cross centre only a walking distance from the road.

"It was on such a huge scale, with the bridge collapsed and cars facing in all directions and at such strange angles.

"This is a bridge which carries 140,000 cars a day and is the main way into the Minneapolis area. After it collapsed everyone wanted to see it.

"The whole thing was surreal. It looked like a film set - you expected a director just to say cut' and everyone go home. It was quite amazing. I have never seen anything of that magnitude."

Liz lives in Minneapolis with her husband Phil, only about three miles from the disaster scene. She moved to the US after studying physiotherapy in Bradford.

Today, her step-mother, Kathy Oldfield, 61, of Roundwood, Moorhead, Shipley, said: "She is incredibly calm in these situations. I'm really proud of the way she just got on with it and helped so many people."

President George Bush, who visited the disaster scene on Saturday, has offered condolences and pledged assistance to help the area recover as the search continued beneath the twisted steel and concrete slabs.

His pledge came as it emerged that officials in the US were warned as early as 1990 that the bridge was "structurally deficient".

But Minnesota officials relied on patchwork repairs and stepped-up inspections that unravelled amid a thunderous plunge of concrete and cars last Wednesday.

"We thought we had done all we could," state bridge engineer Dan Dorgan said. "Obviously something went terribly wrong."

Questions about the cause of the collapse and whether it could have been prevented arose as authorities shifted from rescue efforts to a grim recovery operation, searching for bodies that may be hidden beneath the river's swirling currents.

Police said the death count will surely grow because bodies had been spotted in the water.

Liz said: "Diving teams are still searching because there are still some cars that they have not found.

"But the water is flowing quite fast, which does not make the rescue effort very easy."

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