Students Assist School Bus Driver Suffering Medical Emergency

LA GRANGE, Texas — Two students aboard a school bus here on Thursday stepped in to assist the driver, who had lost control of the bus while having a medical emergency and driving on a bridge over the Colorado River.

Six students were riding the bus at the time. Seventh-grader Karson Vega told FOX 7 that minutes into the ride home, he noticed that the driver was driving erratically. The driver missed a turn and drove into a ditch, started driving in circles, and was going into the ditch on almost every turn, Vega added. When he realized the driver had lost control of the bus, Vega jumped onto the driver’s lap and steered the bus to a stop, Fayette County Record reports.

William Wagner, the superintendent of La Grange Independent School District, told KXAN that sophomore Kyler Buzcek stepped in to help, keeping the other students safe in the back of the bus and relaying where the bus was heading to a 911 dispatcher.

Wagner also told KXAN that the driver is out of the hospital and is recovering. He added that bus drivers are required to have annual physicals to ensure they are fit to drive, and that in his 41 years in education, he “never experienced anything like this.” He also told the news source that he is proud of the students, “because in critical situations it takes people to step up, and they did.”