School bus driver lauded for heroic actions

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SHARON, Ct.- School bus driver Nick Frost effectively saved the lives of the students he was transporting here on Oct. 7 after a tree branch fell on the bus' windshield.

“When the tree hit the windshield, he held it up with one hand and kept safely driving the bus to the side of the road with the other hand,” Rich Dufour, co-owner of All-Star Transportation, told SBF in an interview. “He really did the right thing. The chief of the fire department said there’s a gully to the right of the road and if he had swerved and slammed on the brakes, it probably would have flipped the bus.”

Frost was transporting soccer players from The Forman School in Litchfield to a game when the tree branch snapped in front of his bus.

"It happened so fast, I really don't know what I was thinking, to tell you the truth," Frost told NBC Connecticut. "I just wanted to make sure everyone was OK and get the bus safely off the road."

No one was seriously injured in the accident. Dufour said that Frost sustained cuts on his hand from holding up the windshield. Moreover, shards of glass flew to the back of the bus when the branch hit the windshield, so Frost and several students were taken to a hospital as a precautionary measure. Dufour said everyone has since been released and is doing fine.

Forty-five mph winds in the area are likely what caused the tree branch to snap. “We had severe winds here throughout the afternoon, so we had trees down all over the northwest corner,” Dufour explained.

Frost has been a school bus driver for less than a year. Dufour said he has worked for All-Star Transportation for about six or seven months and he believes Frost’s actions last week are characteristic of him.

“We’re planning to organize a party for him and The Forman School is having an all-school assembly on Oct. 16 to thank Nick for his heroic actions,” Dufour said.