A Wisconsin middle-school student is being celebrated as a hero after he jumped to get control of a school bus this week when the driver experienced a medical emergency.
Acie Holland III, an eighth-grader at Glen Hills Middle School in Glendale, was on a district school bus Wednesday after school when he noticed something was wrong.
The bus driver, a woman who was not identified, fell unconscious after a reported medical episode. Holland realized the bus was veering into oncoming traffic, so he sprang into action.
According to WISN-TV, Holland grabbed the wheel and safely stopped the bus by applying the brakes.
Twenty students — including Holland — and the bus driver were spared injury, and no one on the road was harmed. In addition to saving his fellow students, Holland called 911 to get medical help for the driver.
The student recalled the incident during an interview with WISN.
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“I look up at the bus driver and she was just, like, dazed. I’m looking, and she was like her head was falling on the steering wheel,” Holland told the station.
“I grabbed the steering wheel, then I get us to the curb, and I hit the brakes close, and then when we hit the curb, I turned the wheel all the way because I didn’t know where the parking brake was.”
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The driver regained consciousness after her bus was stopped by her young passenger, and she then called her supervisor.
The district sent a new driver to complete the bus route while the regular driver was treated by emergency responders.
The driver is recovering, school officials said, per WISN.
Holland, meanwhile, said he did what he felt the situation called for, but he also acknowledged he felt like he had grown from it.
“Made me feel good that I know that I saved people and I know I feel more confident now and brave,” the eighth-grader said.
While Holland was modest about his potentially life-saving actions, people who live in his community are calling him a hero.
On the school district Facebook post celebrating the young man, one woman wrote, “This young man saved my boys as they were on the bus! I cannot express enough gratitude!”
Another commenter said, “Absolutely amazing young man. Hero.”
Glen Hills Middle School gave Holland a shoutout on its Facebook page Thursday and celebrated him for showing “leadership.”
The school’s principal also praised Holland’s actions during an interview with WISN.
“I really hope that people take away the fact that like everyday people can do really extraordinary things,” principal Anna Young said. “I think that our students, when they step outside of their comfort zones, can surprise themselves.”
Holland also received praise from his father, Acie Holland Jr., who said he heard about his son’s actions directly from him.
“He was just like, ‘I saved people’s lives today,’ and he was so excited and he seemed like he wasn’t nervous at all,” the proud dad told WISN.
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