Qld couple’s desperate fight to come home after horror tour bus crash

A Brisbane couple are fighting visa delays to return home after miraculously surviving a tour bus crash in Peru that left them seriously injured.

A Brisbane couple are desperately trying to get home after a serious tour bus crash in Peru.

A Brisbane couple have miraculously survived a tour bus crash in Peru that saw them roll down the side of a mountain seriously injuring them.

Stephanie and Jason Rowe were on a dream holiday around South America for their wedding anniversary, when they decided to take a nine hour bus tour to see the Amazon on November 12.

They were on their return journey of the tour when the bus went off the road and started to flip.

Jason Rowe.

Stephanie Rowe was injured in a bus accident in Peru.

“The car just flips over and it starts spinning and we’re just like spinning. And I just remember going over once, over twice and I think to myself if we don’t stop now we’re going to end up in the Amazon river and we are gonna be dead,” Mrs Rowe said.

“I just remember hitting the roof and then getting thrown to the bottom of the car.

“And I have this moment of ‘we are dead, we are going to die’, then it flipped over one more time and it stopped and I was just like holy f*** we are not dead. We are in the car though, but we are not dead.”

Mrs Rowe said she panicked immediately and started yelling for her husband who was originally sitting next to her but she couldn’t see.

“He wasn’t responding so I thought he was dead and it was my idea to go on this stupid tour,” she said.

“I start screaming his name, he’s still not responding, no one is responding.

“The chairs are disintegrated, everything disintegrated, the only window that’s left is the windscreen.

“I go into freakout mode because I’m like we need to not die right now.

Stephanie and Jason Rowe enjoying their holiday before the tour bus crash.

“All of a sudden his head pops up. We were in the middle of the van and he has been flung to the front of the van.”

Mrs Rowe said after she realised they had survived the next challenge was getting up the hill, with all their injuries.

“I didn’t want people to die. And I didn’t want to have to take dead bodies up this cliff, because we were so far down this cliff,” she said.

“This car had taken down all these trees.

“Rocks the size of my head start falling down. And I’m like, and I’m having to yell to the people behind me like we need to watch out for the rocks that are falling because it’s not the fact we haven’t just died in a car crash. It’s now like the rocks in the mud that’s falling down that you know could kill us.”

Passengers scrambling up a hillside after the serious bus crash in Peru.

Since the accident the couple have been “desperately” trying to get home so they can get the healthcare they need and find out what is wrong with them.

”I’ve been extremely stressed … it’s just been non-stop like we nearly died.

“It’s been horrific and the worst thing is we’re not in a country that people speak English and when you are this vulnerable and you’re scared and you don’t know what’s happening in your body and you don’t know what’s happening around you.

“You just want to be safe and you want to be in a place where you can access what you need to access.”

Bruises to Mrs Rowe’s body following the crash.

Mr Rowe suffered facial and head injuries.

Mrs Rowe said they had been in touch with the Australian Embassy and their travel insurance who booked them flights going through Lima, Chile, Auckland and then back to Brisbane but there were delays getting visas to get into Chile.

“All we know is that we’re in like a lot of pain at the moment. And for some God damn reason Chile is taking forever to get the visas to us. So we’re still waiting.

”All I have is sling and painkillers for my neck, we are desperately trying to get back to Australia so we can find out what’s wrong with us.”

In a statement the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said they were assisting two Australians in Peru, but would not comment further on the action.