School Bus Driver Hailed as Hero for Saving Life

Esther Crain
·Writer
Updated
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Dianne Moore has earned hero status for saving the dad of a special needs child on her school bus route who had suffered a massive stroke. (Photo: 2015WorldNow/WAFF)

For 10 years, Dianne Moore and her twin sister, JoAnn Clinard, have worked as a team for the special-needs students in the Limestone County, Alabama school district.

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Moore drives the bus that brings kids with physical and/or developmental delays back home every afternoon, and Clinard is on board with her as an aide to make sure the 8 to 10 kids who ride with them make it to their houses safely.

But on the morning of May 18, it wasn’t a child who was in trouble, but a parent. And thanks to Moore’s suspicion that something was wrong and instinct to investigate, she’s been hailed as a hero.

“Our schools have a policy that for special needs kids, the bus drops each child off in his or her driveway, and a parent must be there to greet them,” Rusty Bates, director of transportation for Limestone County Schools, tells Yahoo Parenting.

That afternoon, however, Ron Edwards, father of 11-year-old student Natalie, wasn’t in his driveway, which is the last stop on the bus route. “Her father wasn’t waiting for her like he normally is,” Moore told WHNT News. “He’s always outside. Somebody’s always there.”

So Moore decided to check things out, taking Natalie to the door while Clinard waited on the bus. “I walked with her to the door and knocked on the door,” Dianne told WHNT News. “She went in.”

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That’s when Moore heard moaning sounds. Edwards was on the floor in medical distress. After reassuring Edwards that she would get help, Moore called Edward’s wife, who told her to dial 911. As paramedics arrived, Clinard kept Natalie and her siblings, who had begun to arrive home from school at that time, out of their way, reported WHNT.

At the hospital, doctors realized that Edwards had suffered a massive stroke. “What Dianne did was phenomenal; she saved his life,” says Bates, adding that Edwards is now out of the ICU and on the road to recovery. “He’s got some rehab ahead of him,” adds Bates.

Moore and Clinard aren’t the only school bus drivers who have gone above and beyond their official duties and earned hero status. In March, a driver in California noticed that the bus engine was on fire, and he herded 35 middle-school kids out of the vehicle right before it exploded in flames.

And in 2011, passengers on a school bus in New Mexico alerted one driver that a student was suddenly unresponsive. The driver pulled her bus off to the side of the road, performed CPR, and asked a parent on board to call 911, saving the student’s life, according to school officials.

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