Chesapeake middle-schoolers help save life of bus driver

CHESAPEAKE

Outside Hickory Middle School, a line of buses, including No. 72, idled at the ramp later than usual. Taylor Roberts was worried - well, more like happy - that she would miss her appointment with her math tutor.

Charles Cotton had loads of German homework. Tests to study for. He needed to get home.

Hannah Burmeister looked up at the clouds and dark sky and figured a storm was coming.

When driver Steve Knapp pulled away from the school just before 4 p.m. on May 20, no rain was falling. It was windy, but not too bad.

What happened over the next hour convinced Knapp and the School Board that the students are heroes.

Knapp looped through the first neighborhood on his route: Stonegate.

Ten minutes later, nine students and Knapp's 8-year-old son, David, were still on board. They kept their windows open until a light rain began to fall and the wind picked up. The bus continued along a two-lane, tree-lined section of Johnstown Road near Elaine Street.

Knapp saw a tree lying across the road about a half-mile ahead. He began to slow the bus.

Hannah and Taylor were listening to music - songs they no longer recall - on their iPods when it happened. A loud thump just above their heads. A tree had just fallen on top of the bus.

Then another loud noise as Knapp glanced back to check on the students. Tree branches enveloped the front of the bus, poking in through a broken windshield. The second tree to hit the bus knocked him partly from his seat, even though he was belted in.

Knapp hit the emergency brake and stood up. "Is everyone OK?" he asked. He turned and something dripped from his neck.

"We all thought he was wearing a red shirt. Then we realized it was blood," Hannah said.

The cut, from either a tree branch or the frame of the windshield, spanned from mid-cheek to the side of his neck.

David began to ask: "Daddy, are you going to die?"

Taylor and a couple other students took David to the back of the bus. They told him everything was going to be OK. One seventh-grader distracted him with a handheld Mario Kart video game.

At the front, Knapp placed a hand on the driver's seat to keep from falling. He called over the radio for help and asked for another bus to pick up his students. The radio crackled. The connection was poor, and too many other bus drivers were talking, so he couldn't get through at first.

Meanwhile, Charles and another boy retrieved a first-aid kit. Knapp pressed sheets of gauze to his face until they were soaked and then threw them aside.

They handed him another piece of gauze, then another. Knapp held each to the inch-and-a-half-deep gash for a couple seconds until it was sopping wet. Four or five wads of gauze were covered in blood.

"I could see it all over me, all over the bus," Knapp said. "I didn't want to die in front of my son."

Three of the students pulled out cell phones and called 911. They all got through but were put on hold. The dispatchers were tied up with storm-related calls that flooded in as rain and wind lashed the region.

Hannah stayed on the line. The dispatcher returned and explained what to do if Knapp became unconscious.

Within 10 minutes, they heard sirens. Charles ran out to flag down rescue personnel. He pushed away tree limbs to get off the bus, careful to avoid red puddles on the floor and steps.

Emergency workers spent five or 10 more minutes trying to reach the scene. Downed trees and heavy traffic in both directions blocked their path.

Once they arrived, Knapp was helped onto a stretcher bound for Chesapeake Regional Medical Center.

A police officer assured the students that their bus driver would be fine, that facial cuts bleed a lot.

Doctors feared Knapp was going into cardiac arrest once he reached the hospital. The wound was less than an inch from his carotid artery, which sends blood to the brain.

Knapp left the hospital about 7:30 p.m. with at least 200 stitches.

He drove his Acura Integra back to the accident site Thursday. The tree was still in the ditch, and he kept glancing up at his closed sunroof.

Knapp has driven a Chesapeake school bus for five years, and he doesn't plan to stop now. He says he'll be back on his route Monday.

Hattie Brown Garrow, (757) 222-5562, hattie.brown@pilotonline.com