First He Put the Rolling School Bus in Reverse. Then He Found Neutral

Ebro Ahmed was standing outside a shop in St. Paul’s Dayton’s Bluff neighborhood on Monday afternoon when a school bus rolled past with its doors open. Something was clearly wrong with the driver.¹²

“I saw a bus roll past me with the doors open, and I saw the bus driver seizing up,” Ahmed, 27, told KSTP-TV.² Saint Paul Public Schools confirmed only that there was a medical emergency on a bus route from Battle Creek Middle School.¹²

The bus was carrying middle school students home after school. Ahmed said he counted 18 children aboard when police arrived. ABC News put the number at nearly 20. None of the students were hurt.¹²

How he stopped the bus

By Ahmed’s account, he ran onto the bus while it was still moving. He accidentally put it in reverse, then got it into neutral and pulled the parking brake.² Once the bus was stopped, he called police and ambulances for the driver.²

Ahmed’s own telling is the main record of what happened inside the bus. Surveillance video from the shop, Bricks Snacks and Tobacco, shows him outside before he ran onto the moving bus. KSTP reviewed the footage, and ABC News reported that the store released it.¹²³

He also had some help from the front row. Ahmed told ABC News he tossed his phone and glasses to one of two girls sitting at the front and asked her to hold them, and that the girls helped him a lot.¹

A TV drama, not a medical degree

Ahmed has no medical experience. He credited the TV drama Grey’s Anatomy with helping him stay calm.¹²

“I really felt like it was my duty,” he told ABC News.¹

He told KSTP he is grateful the bus was not on a highway or a busy street when it happened.²

What happened next

Paramedics responded, and another bus took the students the rest of the way along their route home.¹² On Tuesday, the school’s mental health team checked in with the students.¹²

KSTP reported, based on Ahmed’s account, that the driver is expected to be OK.²

Ahmed explained why he stepped in. “At the end of the day, youth are the most innocent humans on Earth, so anything you can do to save them, help them, it’s worth it,” he told KSTP.²