A young Connecticut girl is being credited with saving the life of her bus driver.
Ava Boenig, A seventh-grade student, took charge when her bus driver, Randy Centeno, suddenly pulled the bus to an unscheduled stop.
He was having a medical emergency, so Ava called 911.
Ava said – “He stopped the bus, it wasn’t anybody’s stop. He was screaming in pain, ‘Help me, help me, somebody call 911.’”
Paula Smith, a 911 dispatcher said Ava “actually remained very calm throughout the whole call. She did a really good job, you could hear the background noise of the upset students and the bus driver obviously in distress.”
When asked if the bus driver was able to talk to Boenig, she told the dispatcher, ‘no,’ and told the dispatcher his chest was really tight.
Smith said “She was able to take and tell us exactly where she was which was very important. I could also hear the bus driver yelling in the background.”
Four minutes later, a driver trained as an EMT and Fire Chief Tom Casey arrived to help the driver.
Ava’s mom Becky is a nurse and former school bus driver and says she’s extremely proud of her daughter.
Someday Ava wants to be a state trooper and help people so she can “Take charge, don’t fight about anything and just do what you need to do and stay calm.”
News reports say the bus driver is recovering and is also proud of Ava.