A Paradise, California, bus driver is being hailed as a hero after driving nearly two dozen elementary school students to safety as amassive wildfire surrounded their northern California school, reports say.
No one could have anticipated the Camp Fire’s deadly impact — it’skilled 77 peopleand left hundreds missing — but Kevin McKay, a school bus driver at Ponderosa Elementary School, began to worry soon after the blaze broke out on Nov. 8,according to CNN.
“The fact that it was coming down in 1,000 places, it was unheard of,” McKay, 41, told CNN of the blaze, calling it a “terrifying situation.”
As the sky became dark and embers fell closer and closer, family members picked their children up from the school, according to CNN. However, 22 kids were stranded at the elementary school as they waited for their relatives to arrive.
McKay took matters into his own hands and spoke with the school’s principal about driving the students to safety himself, in a trip that would take about five hours.
McKay, the children and two teachers — Abbie Davis, 29, and Mary Ludwig, 50 — left with the students, they told CNN. The sky was dark and the flames were visible in the distance.
“The sky was really menacing,” Ludwig said. “It was very scary. It felt like Armageddon.”
Kyle Grillot for The Washington Post/Getty
Soon, the smoke began irritating the kids’ lungs, and McKay acted quickly. He took off his shirt, tore it into pieces and poured water on the fabric so the children could use them to breathe.
“It was so crazy, and there were fires left and right everywhere you looked,” she said.
Hours later, the children were reunited with their families, and Ludwig and Davis praised McKay as a hero.
“We had the bus driver from heaven,” Ludwig told CNN.
The Camp Fire is the deadliest blaze in the state’s history, and 993 people are missing as a result of the fire. By Monday, the fire was 66 percent contained, according to CalFire.
source: people.com
