Florida teacher saves 38 children from burning bus

On December 3, eighth-grade math teacher Kristina Buhrman was filling in as a bus driver for Discovery Academy in Lake Alfred Florida, as she often does. By all accounts, that Wednesday felt like any other dayuntil right after the last stop when the bus hit the highway for its last leg of the journey to school.

“I was driving down the interstate. I had started to notice that there was smoke coming from the back of the bus,” Buhrman recalled. “However, I didn’t know if it was smoke or exhaust at first because it was rather cold, and it’s a bus that I don’t normally drive. Being a substitute bus driver, I don’t drive the same bus every single day.

“I was watching as the smoke was rolling, and it was rolling down, which would exhibit to me that it was exhaust. But then a student in the back stood up and said, ‘Ms. Buhrman, there’s smoke coming out of my seat.’ “

The teacher tells this story as casually as if she were describing meeting a new friend at the mall. She doesn’t view her actions as extraordinary — rather just her way of life.

“We’re put here to help others and to influence others and to do good in this world and to leave a lasting legacy. … If I can do that by helping somebody out of a burning bus or helping somebody out of a burning fire or the numerous times I’ve paid for somebody’s food in McDonald’s or the numerous times I’ve given people money for gas at a gas station because they’ve run out of money, I don’t mind. I would do it 100 times. I would do it over again and I will continue to do so.”

She added, “I especially try to teach that to my students. …You’ve got to do kind things for other people because that’s what this world’s about — people helping people.”

CNN