For the bus staff of the Dallas Independent School district, it was divine intervention.
Earlier this month, a bus was called in to pick up a student who missed their bus.
But instead of picking up a stranded student, the bus driver and her monitor responded to a dangerous situation.
They had to move fast.
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Simone Edmond and Tekendria Valentine were just doing their jobs when the day turned to the unexpected.
Their intervention didn’t only save lives but also proved that heroes can be everyday people.
It started at a bus stop.
When Edmond and Valentine drove to the stop, they saw that there were no students.
Only when they drove on did they realize how fortunate the circumstances were.
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They saw two siblings hanging on a tree for dear life as they were surrounded by raging flood waters.
Brotherly love
The boy had his back against a tree to stop the water from sweeping him and his sister away. Valentine recalled the boy was yelling out for help.
Meanwhile, their dad was fighting through the water to get to them and their mother was calling out to people to call 911.
Edmond and Valentine could’ve just called but they knew they could do something.
They stepped up big time.
“The little boy was yelling out, ‘Help, help,’ and I’m like, ‘Oh, they’re stuck,’” Valentine said in an interview. “But then we started thinking like, maybe we can tie the seat belts together and, you know, like help them.”
Quick thinking at its finest
Luckily, their bus is made to accommodate special education students. The bus has removable seatbelts to strap down wheelchairs.
But this time, they used it as a lifeline. They tied the straps together to form a long line.
As the bus staff sprang into action, the neighbors also joined in.
From the bus, the staff and the neighbors formed a human chain so that they could extend the seatbelts closer to the stranded children.
Once the children were secured, they pulled the seatbelts in so they could shelter the kids on the bus and away from the water.
The little boy was beyond grateful.
“The little boy, he was so appreciative of us. He got out, and he was like, ‘Please, I want to give you a hug. I want to give you a hug,’ and I was like, ‘That’s fine, you can give me a hug,’” Valentine shared, as quoted by The New York Post.
The bus staff also shared that they both don’t know how to swim so getting into the water just to save the kids was a risk to themselves as well.
As for Valentine and Edmond, they have someone else to thank.
They shared that the route where they found the kids wasn’t something they usually take and finding no student at the stop where they were called in, they felt that it was divine intervention.
Higher power at hand?
They insisted that a higher power sent them to that side of the neighborhood because someone needed them at that moment.
The Dallas ISD bus lot has a sign that read, “Heroes work here.” – And they are absolutely right.
See these bus drivers face their fears to save two children in the video below!
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