Quick-thinking middle school students in Mississippi kept their school bus from crashing after their driver passed out while on a four-lane highway.
The bus had just left Hancock Middle School in Hancock County on Wednesday with about 40 children on board when Leah Taylor, 46, had an asthma attack. She reached for her medication but blacked out before she could get it.
In a matter of seconds, the students sprang into action.
Sixth grader Jackson Casnave, 12, who was sitting directly behind the driver, noticed the bus beginning to swerve. Casnave jumped up to steer and told others to call for help.
“I didn’t have time to process my emotions,” Casnave said. “I just wanted to make sure that nobody got hurt.”
Another sixth grader, 12-year-old Darrius Clark, hit the brakes, and together the two managed to maneuver the bus onto a median and put it in park.
Clark's 13-year-old sister Kayleigh ran from the back of the bus to the front and called 911. She said later that she could hardly hear the emergency operator because so many students were screaming.
“I was scared, but also I had to help,” said Kayleigh Clark, an eighth grader.
Fellow eighth grader Destiny Cornelius, 15, also ran up to help and noticed that Taylor was holding a nebulizer. Cornelius administered the medicine while McKenzy Finch, a 13-year-old sixth grader, held Taylor's head.
Finch also picked up Taylor's phone, which was ringing, and told the district's transportation team what had happened.
“I’m grateful for my students,” said Taylor, who has made a full recovery. “They’re the ones that saved my life and everybody else’s on that bus.”
The students were honored at a pep rally Friday and will be treated to a lunch field trip next week at a restaurant of their choosing.
“What they did took courage,” principal Dr. Melissa Saucier said. “They didn’t wait for somebody to step in, they stepped up themselves, and that says a lot about their character.”