A dozen young Washingtonians are safe and sound today thanks to the quick thinking of 13-year old Jeremy Wuitschick.
The students were reluctantly on their way back to school after spring break when Wuitschick noticed the bus driver was having some kind of seizure or heart attack. "The bus driver starts convulsing, his eyes are bulging," Wuitschick told a local news channel.
The driver, Wuitschick said, was "making weird rasping noises and his hands were twitching."
A security camera mounted on the bus's windshield captured what happened next: as the bus started terrifyingly drifting across the road, Wuitschick dashed without hesitation down the centre aisle and grabbed hold of the wheel.
Students can be heard on the video shouting: "Oh my God!" and "Call 911!" One can be heard shouting: "Take the keys out of the ignition!"
That's just what Wuitschick did, as he steered the bus to the side of the road. The bus had just started pulling into Surprise Lake Middle School in Milton, about 30 miles south of Seattle.
"I was just thinking 'I don't want to die'," he told local affiliate King-TV.
Speaking later to KOMO News, the seventh grader added: "I was just acting on instinct."
A classmate of Wuitschick's, Johnny Wood, said he knew CPR, and can be seen giving the stricken driver chest compressions while another student is heard calling the emergency services.
Hailed as heroes in their hometown, Wuitschick and Wood have been promised all the school snacks they can eat by his principal.
Deputy schools superintendent Jeff Short told AP that the 43-year-old driver, who has not be identified, was in a "grave condition" in hospital.
Not yet a licensed driver himself, Wuitschick did admit to having some practice with cars: his mother lets him back her car out of the garage in order to wash it.
