A keen eye and quick thinking helped a South Carolina school bus driver save the life of one of the youngsters aboard her bus. Driver Sacajawea Blassingame pulled to her usual stop to allow 8-year-old Brayden Burns to disembark the bus. While Burns collected himself to exit, Blassingame saw a mini-van speeding down the road. Blassingame told the child to hold off leaving the bus and saved his life within seconds of the minivan potentially hitting him. “I was getting off the bus, I was about to take a step in front and the car flew past at 72 miles an hour,” said Burns. The vehicle roared by the bus and burned rubber through a series of stop signs. Blassingame’s heroic efforts are being hailed statewide, but the loudest applause is coming from the mother of the 8-year-old. “I’m just standing there watching. I hear a motor, look down toward the bridge, ‘Are you going to stop?’ is what’s running through my head,” said the mother.
An alert high school student and responsive transportation department are being honored with averting a tragedy. Shawn Beurker, a junior at a New York state high school, realized there was something wrong as he rode the school bus. “The driver suddenly fell ill. He drove over a lawn and swerved into a mailbox and was meandering from lane to lane on the road,” said the superintendent. Beurker stepped to the front of the bus and discovered that the driver was quickly losing his capabilities to drive. “He asked the driver if he was OK and said, ‘You need to stop the bus.’ He put on the emergency brake and called the dispatcher,” said the superintendent. The dispatcher cleared the radio of all other communication and talked Beurker through it. Another of the 14 passengers on the bus called 9-1-1 and kept other students calm. Help arrived fast. The bus driver is going to recover.
It goes to show that some people can stoop low. As if to prove this point and take it a step further, a gang of robbers held up a 14-year-old middle school student while she waited at an area school bus stop. Atlanta police are still on the hunt for the perpetrators, who snatched the girl’s phone and shoved her to the ground before jumping back into their vehicle to flee the scene. One witness recounted hearing the teenager’s terrified screams calling for help. “You can hear it all the way up the street and stuff. We just looked out here, and she was like crying; and it look like she threw something,” the witness said. Parents and other neighbors hope that parents who send their kids to catch their bus hope they are aware of the attack.
Sometimes, people are the worst. Minneapolis school bus driver Charles Edward Glover does little to dispel this belief. Glover is suspected of molesting a then-4-year-old boy he transported between an ADHD treatment center and daycare. The driver appeared in court and was charged with criminal sexual conduct in the second degree. According to the criminal complaint, the incident occurred last summer when Glover pulled down the boy’s pants and fondled him inappropriately. The boy later told his aunt. If convicted, Glover faces up to 25 years in prison, as well as a possible fine of up to $35,000. Glover was a driver for a handicapped transportation service that claims that a majority of their clients are elderly and disabled. This is not a first for Glover, who was suspected of molesting a 10-year-old boy in 1998. Charges were not pursued.
