Hardly anyone spares a thought for their local public transport driver.
At most, you’ll give them a nod and a hello as a regular passenger, and exchange some pleasant civilities.
After all, in the business of our modern everyday lives, we just simply do not have the energy or strength to spare on people and things that do not concern us.
It just can’t be helped – when so many people live so closely together, and our work and lives demand so much of us, conserving energy is simply the easiest thing to do.
This is probably the greatest tragedy of the 21st century, this sort of sheer indifference has lead to absolutely horrific events unfold, only to have the bystander syndrome kick into full swing and have no one even spare more than a glance.
But when you are a driver for a school bus full of young children, things are a little different.
As a normal bus driver, your obligation and duty is already to ensure safe passage for your passengers to and fro, from destination to destination.
Anything that is to occur is entirely under your jurisdiction and responsibility, and that work can be a little harrowing as it is.
When you throw young children into the mix, it gets even more difficult.
Most of us have done something stupid at least once in their childhood, at one point or another.
It is, in fact, a part and parcel of childhood, and with it the lessons learnt and the nostalgic memories gathered.
This is pretty normal, as a child’s prefrontal cortex is still undergoing development, and hasn’t quite developed the logical and rational thinking processes that we need.
What happens, then, is children doing something dangerous.
As parents, we can only hope that in our absence, our children will be rescued were something nightmarish were to happen.
Thankfully for this five-year-old’s parents, the bus driver that day was an observant woman, who would regularly glance back to check in on her young charges.
This attentiveness would soon alert her to the most horrific sound- someone was choking.
With an astonishing sense of calmness upon being told by the child’s friend that he was choking, she quickly pulled the bus aside and unbuckled, then rushed over to him.
Throughout the whole incident she exuded a sense of composure and confidence that kept the other children from panicking, something that could have easily gone out of hand once they knew what was going on.
In seconds she has the boy plucked out of his seat and in her arms, where she performs the Heimlich Maneuver and easily gets the penny that was blocking his airway out of his throat and onto the ground.
Her rescue done, she could have easily gone back to driving the bus to school- after all, she was still on shift, and there were other children in the bus that needed to go home.
Instead, however, she opted to stay with the boy, soothing him with kind words as she helps clean the boy’s mouth.
Truly an awe-inspiring woman.
