A truck driver is being praised after helping to save an entire high school football team from a bus that suddenly caught fire.
The incident happened on September 24th on Interstate 75 in Kentucky.
According to NBCDFW, trucker Alvin Edwards was just heading down the road when noticed a bus hauling an entire football team had caught fire without anyone on board seeming to notice. Edwards was eventually able to flag down the bus driver, who brought the bus to a stop, and that’s when Edwards sprung into action.
“I said ‘the bus is on fire, the wheel is on fire, you need to pull the bus over,'” said Edwards, who immediately grabbed his fire extinguisher and attempted to put out the flames.
“At this point, I see the fire I say, ‘It’s not going out, it’s not going to go out, it’s getting worse, everybody get out, get out of the bus, everybody get out.” Thankfully, the entire high school football team, coaches, and bus driver were able to exit the bus before any serious damage was done, all because of one truck driver.
Edwards says that he was not supposed to have been going that direction on I-75, but that he had made a wrong turn after stopping to get something to eat.
“I felt like it was my own kids in there. I went into protection mode and had to get them out, you know? There’s no way in the world I could have not done anything when I see a school bus with kids in it on fire,” he said.
In honor of his heroic deed, the football team invited Edwards, who lives in Carrollton, Texas, back to Kentucky for their rivalry game last Friday. In addition, he was honored with a signed jersey from the football team with the number 35 – the same number of people that were on the bus – a key to the city, and was named a ‘Kentucky Colonel,’ the highest honor given by the state’s governor.
“I get a little emotional thinking about it,” Edwards continued. “It was something, it really was. They [the team] crowded me like we had won a football game. They were slapping me on my bald head, giving me hugs, shaking my hand
There is still no information on what led to the bus fire.