Heroes come in all shapes and sizes. In this unbelievable story – the hero happens to be a fifth-grader from Crows Landing, California.
Ten-year-old Troy Luna is from a small town of 355 people – and now he’s the official town hero. The elementary school student from Stanislaus County is being held responsible for keeping 30 of his fellow schoolmates safe on their school bus ride home.
The young boy noticed that his bus driver was driving really strangely – swerving all over the road. That’s when he decided to break out his cell phone and call 9-1-1 to let them know something was wrong.
After Luna called the police, the bus driver was pulled over and later found to have drugs on her.
Apparently, the fifth-grader is no stranger to looking out for people. In fact, he has 8 siblings in his family and knows almost all of 150 kids that go to Bonita Elementary School. On this particular day after getting on the bus after school, something told Luna to be on high alert.
“I smelled something weird,” he told a local news channel.
The weird smell that Luna was smelling was coming from his bus driver – Karolyn Denise Ray.
The young boy wasn’t sure what the odor was but he knew that it was making the kids on the bus cough. Soon, the bus driver missed a drop-off stop and began swerving on the road. Next, it only got worse.
“She stepped on the breaks really hard, and a few kids went flying and hit their heads on the seats,” Luna explained.
It was at this moment that Luna knew he had to call the police – everyone’s safety was in jeopardy. Despite his friends telling him not to – Luna knew it was the right thing to do.
“All my friends were trying to talk me out of it. I said, ‘I don’t care, I don’t feel right,’ so I just did it,” he said.
Police pulled up behind the bus when Ray made a stop to drop off a child.
After a sobriety test, it was determined that Ray failed. She was arrested on charges of driving under the influence of drugs and endangering the welfare of a child. Of course, the local school district was stunned and saddened to hear about what happened.
“It’s disheartening and appalling,” said District Superintendent Phil Phillpot.
Ray was an employee of First Student and now Phillpot is considering scrapping the relationship with the school bus company altogether.
“I told them we were going to be reevaluating our relationship with First Student,” he said.
Phillpot is extremely proud of Luna’s actions that day and, of course, his family is proud too.
“The whole family is really proud of him,” says Luna’s mom Collette.
Even though school bus drivers are blood tested at random, they are not checked before every drive. Ray happened to be a substitute bus driver that day and was filling in from another district.
First Student issued a statement in regard to their own active investigation:
“Certainly, we understand and appreciate the concern this has caused. We, too, take this incident very seriously. First Student is partnering with local authorities for their investigation of the matter; we also are conducting our own internal review. Consistent with our standard process, the driver was immediately removed from service pending the outcome of the investigation. Given that this is an active investigation, we are unable to comment further.”
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