An Ohio school bus driver described the scene after saving 15 students from a burning school bus.
Dorian Pace, a bus driver with the Cleveland Heights-University Heights City School District, was driving a group of middle schoolers on Feb. 27 when he heard the sound of a loud boom underneath the vehicle, he told ABC’s Good Morning America (GMA).
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“I actually felt like the bus was about to blow up,” he said. “When I pulled [the bus] over, I actually heard another boom and I saw smoke coming from the right rear tire. And then I saw flames.”
Pace told the outlet he went into what he proclaimed was “bus evacuation mode” the moment he observed the flames.
“What was going through my mind was, ‘I can’t lose any kids,’” he said. “So I quickly got everybody off the bus. We all exited through the regular front door because the fire was coming from the right rear.”
All of the students onboard were unharmed. Pace and the students said some were not aware of the seriousness of the fire until it swiftly spread throughout the bus.
Pace said his prayers were answered the day of the incident.
“I pray on the bus every day. I try to pray before I pick up the kids and God just answered my prayers,” he told GMA.
“I saw a little girl getting on the bus like I do every day. After she got on the bus, I heard a big boom. I looked out the window and I saw flames coming from the side of the bus,” Maureen Ottman, a local, told ABC affiliate WEWS.
“There were a couple of booms,” seventh-grader Britt Mosby said. “The bus driver said, ‘Everybody get off the bus.’ That’s when we ran from it and the bus just caught on fire. We were all scared. We called our parents. Luckily the bus driver got us off safely.”
“I would feel such a level of comfort putting my kids on one of your school buses, knowing that there are men and women of this character,” Ohio Department of Public Safety Director Andy Wilson told Pace.
Officials told the outlet they believe the fire was sparked behind the wheel well and an investigation is still underway to determine the exact cause.
The school district said the bus passed an inspection two weeks prior to the incident. They now intend to re-inspect the district’s whole fleet of buses out of caution.
