Hero bus driver credited with saving choking girl's life

LOUISVILLE, KY (WAVE) - A Jefferson County Public Schools bus driver is being hailed a hero after she was able to save a student from choking.

It happened on the afternoon of June 1 at Hawthorne Elementary.

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"If something would have happened to her, I wouldn't have been able to drive a bus again," bus driver Yvonne Wilson said.

Wilson is known to her students as Ms. Bunny, a childhood nickname. For more than a decade, Wilson has driven a bus for JCPS.

"I'm stern and they know I am and they know I don't like candy, but they sneak it on there," Wilson said.

Knowing the potential dangers Wilson watches to make sure her students are done with the sweets before they get on the bus.

"They have a sucker in their mouth, 'Oh is that for me?' and they get mad at me because when I take it, I through it away," Wilson said.

But on that day, as the bus was about to leave the school parking lot, a kindergartner got piece of hard candy got stuck in her throat.

"All the kids were loaded, I was getting ready to sit down and the kids said 'She's choking. She's choking'," Wilson said. "I was nervous, but then the mama mode jumped in."

Running to the child Wilson says she grabbed her and started to perform the Heimlich maneuver.

"She had that shiny look like she was gasping for air," Wilson said.

When that wasn't working, she got the child off the bus and continued just using one hand.

"I was nervous, so I all I did was just push her and just keeping pushing her like that and it came on out," Wilson said.

Even though she was scared Wilson said she focused on her training and that potentially saved the little girl's life.

"I was just glad to help," Wilson said. "I was just glad that I was there at that time. God puts us in certain places just for stuff like that and really if I hadn't taken CPR, I don't know if I would have been able to handle that in the right place."

Wilson says the child's father gave her a hug and thanked her the next day for all she did.

All JCPS bus drivers are required to go through CPR and first aid training every two years.

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