A 16-YEAR-OLD girl had to go to hospital for blood tests after she sat on an apparently used needle on the bus.

Francesca Palmer-Norris, from Hollingbury, was on the top deck of the number 24 bus when she felt the object piercing her leg.

The student is awaiting test results and says she is struggling to put the incident out of her mind.

She said: “My friend and I had got on the bus to come home and I was sat on the top.

“I suddenly had this shooting pain in the back of my leg. Then I pulled it out and it was a needle that had snapped in half.

“Then I looked down the side of the bus [seat] and there were packets and a syringe on the floor and the rest of it [the needle].

“Then the bus stopped outside Asda and I explained to the bus driver what had happened and he said it was best to go to the hospital.”

She spent the next four hours in hospital where she was given a hepatitis jab and had blood tests, before going home that night.

She added: “The worrying thing now is I am waiting for the results to come back. My head is all over the place right now. I can’t sleep.”

The bus driver shut the top deck of the bus and took the bus for a full inspection as “soon as practically possible,” the bus company said.

Adrian Tullett, head of operations at Brighton and Hove Bus Company, said the incident was being investigated using CCTV footage.

She added: “We have also carried an interview with the driver concerned.

“The driver followed procedure and secured off the top deck as soon as he was made aware of an object that needed removing from the seating area and he took the vehicle out of service for a full inspection as soon as was practically possible.

“We would like to reassure passengers that we take these matters very seriously and that all our buses get a visual inspection at the end of each journey. Our customer services team is liaising direct with the girl’s family.”

Sussex Police is also investigating.