A Michigan schoolboy, who saved his classmates by taking the wheel of their school bus when the driver passed out, has credited the heroic act with not being distracted by a cell phone.
Dillon Reeves, 13, realized that the woman driving the bus taking him and his classmates home from Carter Middle School in Warren had lost consciousness. DailyMail reports.
In a green hoody and jeans Dillon quickly sprang into action, grabbing the wheel and searching for the break after noticing the driver was unconscious.
He managed to park the bus on Masonic Boulevard and told his friends, who can be heard screaming on the recording, to call 911.
The bus driver, who had only been in the job since July 2022 and has not yet been named, was transported to a local hospital for an unspecified medical condition.
No passengers were injured.
The seventh-grader’s father Steve told CBS: ‘What else are you going to do when you don’t have a phone? You’re going to look at people, you’re going to notice stuff.
‘You’re going to look out the window. It’s a very powerful lesson, maybe a change-the-world kind of lesson.’
The schoolboy has also spoken out for the first time since the incident on April 26, telling the program: ‘I just knew what to do at that moment. The bus was swerving off the road.’
Steve told a press conference after the event that he and his wife, Ireta, were ‘very, very proud’ of their son, ‘he is very attentive to his surroundings.’ Ireta added on Facebook: ‘Jesus had everything to do with the bravery and swift action Dillon displayed today.
‘To Dillon, it’s just another day. He has no idea the amount of people who are so proud of him today,’ she wrote.
Classmates that were inside the vehicle during the scary episode told CBS how they were distracted by their electronic devises when Dillon had already taken control of the situation.
‘I had my AirPods in,’ one student explained.
‘I was looking on my phone’ another said, with a classmate adding ‘I was on my phone playing a little game.’
Their son’s efforts have given his parents more cause not to give Dillon a cell phone.
This may seem unjust to some teenagers, but Dillon simply shrugged and said: ‘Whatever. My parents are old school.’
Robert Livernois, Superintendent of The Warren Consolidated School said: ‘He stood up, he assessed the situation and saw that the driver had passed out. This was an extraordinary act of courage.’
Adding: ‘He jumped up from his seat, threw his backpack down, ran to the front and grabbed the wheel and brought the bus to a stop.’
Commissioner Dwyer of the Warren Police Department also praised Dillon for his actions, inviting him down to the police station accompanied by his proud parents.
