Marta, a Lurraldebus driver since July, was inches away from crashing into the truck that ran over five Navarra regional police officers on the AP-8 highway near Elgoibar last Wednesday. She and her 63 passengers experienced moments of sheer terror. She returned to work on Thursday and will finish a tough week on Friday, but has not even considered taking sick leave.

Marta is always one of the first to arrive at work. "I really like to arrive early, prepare the bus, without rushing. They say I'm a bit of an overachiever," she admits. She lives in Castro Urdiales and has to leave home before dawn to reach the Bilbao depots by seven in the morning.

Before joining Lurraldebus, she had worked in "Castro and Bizkaibus". She admits she hasn't been in the profession for many years—she was previously a dance teacher—but long enough to know what she's doing. The Donostia-Bilbao line is her route. "I love it," she says without hesitation. She knows it by heart.

On Wednesday, she was completing her second journey of the day. She had left Bilbao at seven, arrived in Donostia, and at half-past eight was returning towards Bilbao with passengers from the Atotxa station. The bus was full: 63 passengers, plus herself. Packed. "Always full; it's rare for there to be empty seats," she says. The Donostia-Bilbao is one of the busiest lines.

Suddenly, with no time to think, “I saw myself there: shit, shit, shit. You know that feeling when you say: it's not braking, it's not braking, it's not braking." Marta reacted. First the retarder—"I engaged it low”—then the brake. The exact sequence, in the exact order. And she relied on the mechanics: “When it stops, it stops.” And it stopped: "It's a Volvo, and they brake super well," she admits. But even so, she came "very, very close" to experiencing an unimaginable tragedy.

Debris even hit the front of the bus, though without causing damage. Inside, “backpacks flew out.” A passenger wearing headphones was jolted awake by the sudden braking. Marta recounts this and draws a conclusion: "Then people get angry with us when we say musical instruments should go in the luggage compartment. Imagine if one had flown out yesterday and hit someone." Passengers don't always understand these rules. “Until something happens.”

Marta saw "everything, everything, everything": the van's maneuver, which initially seemed to want to take the AP-1 fork via the two right lanes, the subsequent correction to try to continue on the AP-8, the impact with the median, and the chaos. A “tremendous crash,” “the car going back and forth, debris, white dust.” And the image of the oncoming truck, occupying her lane, is what she can't get out of her head.

Then came the moment of silence before reacting. She got out of the bus. “There was a nurse among the passengers, who immediately went to the truck driver.” The driver was conscious, bleeding from his hand and with a wound on his eyelid, but he was okay—he has already been discharged. Those in the van were not. "I feel sorry, especially sorry. Remembering the boys, and I saw them," she laments.

What would have happened with an old bus? "We were discussing it, or on a day like today with rain (referring to Thursday)..." With wet asphalt and slippery roads. "Better not to think about it," she admits. The same 63 passengers, the same truck in the same spot. The outcome could have been completely different. Marta will turn 50 on June 25th and has been driving long enough to know that, sometimes, one detail changes everything.

Today it weighs on her more, she says, because yesterday she was like "floating", not fully aware of what she had experienced. "Without realizing it. I'm not aware, but I swear I have gaps, that I don't remember things." But even so, she hasn't considered taking sick leave. "Not at all, because I don't want to get scared" of driving. "I love my job," she repeats. And she believes that being busy does her good.

Her colleagues and passengers congratulated her yesterday. They are practically the same people every day, although she doesn't always complete the same route or the same shift. Three trips a day: leave Bilbao for Donostia at seven, make the return journey, and then head back to Donostia, where at the end of her shift she takes the same bus—driven by a colleague this time—and returns home.

Her partner is also a driver on the same route and has been her main support during these hours. It was precisely this week that she was on the morning shift on that route, at that time. It could have happened to him. It could happen to any colleague any day. A Lurraldebus colleague asked her: “But how did you manage?" She shrugs. "I can't explain it." Either it comes out of you or it doesn't.

"Passing through the same place for the first time has stirred me up a bit," she admits. One of the things that struck her most was that "everything was already fixed, the road clear, as if nothing had happened. Honestly, they are amazing." But that same median, which looked intact today, was the downfall of the five regional police officers on Wednesday. She knows what happened there just 24 hours earlier. She saw it from the driver's seat.