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Dublin: 5 °C Thursday 23 May, 2013

VIDEO: 13-year-old boy saves school bus as driver passes out

Quick-thinking pupil Jeremy Wuitschick managed to guide the bus to a stop – as this clip shows…

Image: Screen grab via YouTube

THESE SCHOOL CHILDREN may not have been looking forward to school on the first day back after spring break, but they knew what to do when their bus driver slumped over the wheel unconscious.

Surveillance video shows 13-year-old Jeremy Wuitschick rushing down the aisle and grabbing the wheel on Monday morning as other students yell: “Call 911!”

Wuitschick had noticed the driver was shaking and his arms flailing just as the bus started to pull into Surprise Lake Middle School in Milton, about 30 miles south of Seattle, Washington

Wuitschick saw the driver’s eyes bulging and heard rasping noises. Diving over the driver, he removed the keys and turned the steering wheel to pull the bus over. The bus slowly came to a stop against the curb.

“I was just thinking, ‘I don’t want to die,’” Wuitschick said. “I turned to the right. Turned to the side of the road. Took the keys out of the ignition. We started slowing down, and I said, ‘Somebody call 911!’”

Wuitschick and another student, Johnny Wood, who trained in first aid by the Red Cross, started chest compressions on the driver until adults arrived.

The bus didn’t hit any other vehicles, and no one was injured. Police Chief Bill Rhoads credited Wuitschick’s quick actions.

“We’re just happy the kid was thinking on his feet,” he said.

Watch the incident unfold here:


YouTube/AssociatedPress

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