A hero truck driver saved the lives of 22 children on Monday after the bus driver failed to yield, putting the students directly into the path of his oncoming semi truck.
The accident happened on the afternoon of April 16th in Topeka, Kansas.
According to the Kansas highway Patrol, the bus transporting students home from Eisenhower Middle School was traveling on US Highway 24 just south of Marlatt Avenue when the bus driver failed to yield to a semi truck, driving the school bus right into the path of the oncoming big rig.
Luckily, trucker Delbert Henson noticed the bus driver’s mistake and immediately slammed on the brakes and swerved, overturning his rig into a ditch but avoiding a collision with the bus load of students.
The bus driver then pulled over, calmed the students, and continued on her bus route, dropping students off.
“She was talking about how we didn’t need to go back since people were already going to attend the situation, and how dispatch was calling 911,” explained Jaxon, one of the students on the bus.
None of the students or the bus driver were hurt in the accident, but Henson did sustain some non life threatening injuries. He was transported to a nearby hospital for his injuries, reported WIBW News.
“Had the truck driver not swerved to miss that bus at the last second he would have taken out the back of that bus, and that’s where my child was sitting,” said Melissa Bowles, mother to Jaxon.
“They had some angels watching over them on that bus trip that day,” Bowles continued, stating that she has already spoken to Henson since the accident, thanking him again for his heroic actions.
“They [the other kids] were talking about it when I got on the bus [the next] morning, and they were talking about how they were glad that they were alive because he swerved out of the way,” Jaxon added.
Kansas Highway Patrol says that the unnamed bus driver was later issued a citation for failure to yield.
