A WOMAN will have to be tested for HIV after she sat on a hypodermic needle on a Nottingham City Transport bus.
The 24-year-old woman says the needle had been deliberately placed to protrude through the seat on the top deck of the number 27 bus from the city centre to Carlton.
She said: "I sat straight down on top of it and only noticed when I felt the pain.
"I was shocked and I quickly realised that the needle had been placed there deliberately. It was jutting out the top of the seat."
The needle pricked the woman on the back of the leg when she was returning home from work at a law firm in the city centre on Tuesday last week at around 5.40pm.
"It's been a bit of a nightmare," she said. "I'll have to wait 12 weeks to be tested for HIV. I've also had to have jabs for hepatitis."
Police have confirmed that they are investigating the incident and Nottingham City Transport says it has kept the CCTV and will be checking it to see if any passengers placed the needle there on purpose. An NCT spokesman said: "Reports of needles being found on city buses are, thankfully, very rare but procedures are in place should they be found and these were implemented in full when the customer notified us that she had been pricked by a needle.
"This involved the customer being offered medical help, which was declined in this instance, and the area being immediately taped off and monitored by an off-duty driver for the remainder of that journey.
"Once all passengers on that journey were safely off the bus, it was then returned to the garage for a deep clean.
"Customer safety is of paramount importance at Nottingham City Transport. All our drivers check buses regularly throughout their shift and we would encourage customers to alert drivers should they find a needle on a bus to keep such risks to a minimum."
