A Louisiana bus driver is being hailed a hero after quickly jumping into action and saving the lives of nine students before a school bus went up in flames on March 13, 2024.
Kia Rousseve, who is a driver for Community Academies of New Orleans, was driving along her normal route on her way to her fifth stop when she noticed something was wrong. "I put my motherhood on," she said in an interview with Good Morning America. "I have a child, so I thought about them kids like it was my own child."
She first realized there was a problem when her bus started to lose power. "The bus started acting crazy and started jerking and going real, real slow," she remembered. A security camera caught the incident on video. The footage shows the driver pulling over and then a bystander runs to inform her that flames are coming from underneath the bus.
Kia jumped into action and quickly gathered the students (ranging from kindergarten to eight grade), got them off the bus, and led them away. "I just had to stay calm for the kids because there was crying and running up the street, and I had to get them together, you know, make sure they were straight," she said.
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Just minutes later, the bus went up in flames. Her employer commended her quick action. "We could have lost our lives. That's what I've been thinking a lot," the driver said. "Every time I look at the pictures and like, wow, my seat was the first thing that caught on fire. I was just glad that I was being a hero to the kids and being a hero to myself by getting them off the bus."
