A woman whose home in Holmer Green was destroyed in Saturday’s terrifying crash miraculously walked away from the accident despite being in the same room putting up Christmas decorations just seconds before the bus ploughed through the wall, it has emerged.

Emergency services were called out to Wycombe Road at around 2.30pm on Saturday after a Carousel bus careered into the house – which had at least two people inside at the time – causing serious damage just days before Christmas.

Neighbours spoke of their shock and told the Bucks Free Press the female occupant was near the window putting her tree up at the time.

A couple who did not want to be named, said: “She had put the tree up and got the lights out, and wanted to make sure they would work so she had walked down the lounge to the back to turn them on, when the bus hit. If she would have been in the window, it would have sent her flying.”

Norman Wilson, who lives next door to the property, said: “She had been standing in the window decorating her Christmas tree and she walked away as a bus smashed into the house.

“She was very shaken up. It all happened so quickly.”

Eyewitness and neighbour Eileen Berry said she couldn’t believe her eyes when she looked out of the window and saw the scene in front of her.

She called her daughter Caroline and 16-year-old granddaughter Charlotte to go and help. She said: “I could see the owners of the house stood outside in total shock and shivering so we put a blanket around them and checked they were OK, which they were.

“She was actually stood in the window I think at the time putting her Christmas decorations up.”

According to Eileen, there were six people on the bus, including a young woman holding a baby, grandparents with their young grandson and the driver.

She added: “We heard the rubble starting to fall from the house and we realised the house could collapse because it was bowing – so it wasn’t like a bus had just hit a wall, it was in the house.

"Our priority was the driver because we didn’t know what had happened to him to cause that much damage. All he kept asking us was, “did I kill anyone?”

“And we told him everyone was ok and off the bus, and we needed to get him off – it took a lot of coaxing to get him off the bus, he was like a captain who didn’t want to leave his ship.”

High Wycombe-based Carousel Buses said the driver, who had been with the company for 16 months and had a good record, has been “relieved of duties” while an investigation is ongoing.