Hero bus driver saves students moments before vehicle explodes: ‘Courage on wheels’
A New Orleans school bus driver says her maternal instincts kicked in when she spotted smoke coming from the vehicle last week and ushered nine children to safety moments before it burst into flames.
“As soon as I saw the bus smoking, my instinct said, ‘Get them off the bus,’ ” Kia Rousseve, 28, told Fox 8 of the terrifying incident in the Central City neighborhood Wednesday morning.
“A little girl came up and told me the bus was on fire underneath. I got them off,” the driver said.
“I turned the bus off and got off. When I got off, the bus blew up. All I heard was, ‘Boom! Boom! Boom!’ I was like, ‘Oh, my God, the bus blew up.'”
Rousseve said she was thinking of her own child when she heroically sprang into action and took the life-saving step, which prompted her employer, Community Academies of New Orleans, to call her “courage on wheels.”
Rousseve was about to make her fifth stop on her route, which included K-8 students, when the potentially deadly incident occurred.
After getting the children far enough away from the bus, she returned to double-check that no one else was inside the vehicle, she said.
“I was shook up, too, but I had to stay calm and not cry, ’cause the kids were crying,” she said.
Days after the explosion, an oil sheen could be seen where the bus had been, and the street remained charred.
Rousseve, who has been driving school buses for three years, said she believes a faulty alternator started the fire.
“I feel great about saving other kids’ lives and saving my life,” she said.
Community Academies said it conducted additional inspections of its entire fleet after the incident.
