CLEVELAND — An Ohio school bus driver is being hailed as a hero after tossing a child out of the way of a rolling bus Tuesday before the vehicle rolled over the driver herself and she was killed.
“She sacrificed her own life to save the life of this 10-year-old girl,” said Akron police Lt. Rick Edwards.
Edwards said the bus pulled up beside Middlebury Academy in Akron when the driver asked the students to perform routine evacuation drills. The students, about 40 ranging from kindergartners to eighth-graders, first exited the bus at the front and lined up single file on the sidewalk as instructed. They then got back on the bus and exited the rear emergency exit, Edwards said.
The 10-year-old girl, the last to exit, was climbing out the back of the bus when the vehicle started rolling backward, Edwards said. The driver threw the girl onto a lawn then the bus rolled over the driver.
“I don’t think she had time to react,” Edwards said.
As students stood nearby, the bus came to a stop after running into a tree.
The driver, who was identified only as a 51-year-old Akron resident, worked for a private bus company, Cincinnati-based Petermann, a subsidiary of National Express Corp. She was pronounced dead at a hospital about two hours after the 8:10 a.m. accident.
Middlebury Academy and the Akron school district sent grief counselors to the charter school.
“Our focus is making sure kids feel safe and supportive and to get whatever resources we can into the school immediately,” school executive director Joe Palmer said.
Edwards said the Ohio State Highway Patrol will examine the mechanics of the bus to determine what caused it to roll backward. National Express spokeswoman Molly Hart said the Warrenville, Illinois, company is working with local authorities and conducting its own investigation.
A website for Petermann said the company transports 50,000 Ohio children each school day.
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