Questions persist after passengers who struggled to escape from last week’s crashed bus maintain there was so emergency exit from the stricken vehicle.

The driver of the bus from the March 11 crash on East Broadway has been arrested and released on police bail, but not charged.

The vehicle was outbound from Hamilton with a nursery school outing on board when it struck the side of a parked car, leading to a series of collisions with other parked vehicles, but no serious injuries.

Witnesses described confusion after the bus came to a stop, as passengers were unable to exit. The Royal Gazette reported last week that the customised hammer for shattering the emergency escape window had been removed. A long-serving bus operator said the tools had been taken off all emergency windows to prevent them from being misused. Passengers and bystanders repeatedly tried to break free before finding a single window to pass children out to safety.

“I feel like the buses are death traps — we could not get out,” said an adult woman passenger who sustained torn ligaments in the collision. “I was on the back and I handed children out to people one by one. There was no way we could go through the door. It was all smashed in; there was glass everywhere.”

She said she only found the window that opened fully after a passenger jumped out to safety. The passenger, who asked not to be named as she relies on the bus for daily transport, said she was able to crawl out after the children had been helped out through the window.

Questions were put to a Department of Transportation spokeswoman about the missing breaking device for the main emergency window, but no response came.

“I can’t believe that in 2015 we have buses that don’t have any exit for the people on board,” she said. “People could have died. Every time I go down Spurling Hill, I go through it all over again. I’m just imagining what those children are going through.”