School Trip Hero

If you have a teenager at home, you worry. When he’s not at home, you worry more. One April night three years ago, Kyle, my 14-year-old, was late coming back from a school trip. When the phone rang a woman said, “Is this Kyle’s mother?”

“Yes.” I was trembling.

“He’s okay,” she said. “But there’s been an accident. The kids are on their way back to the school. Kyle’s a remarkable young man.”

The phone clicked, and the woman and I were disconnected. My husband and I went to the school to wait with the other parents. Finally, after midnight, police cars and buses pulled up. Boys and girls poured out, and in the center of it all was Kyle. Everyone was hugging him, thanking him and crying. They were calling him a hero. But I’ll let him tell the story.

--Melinda Storey

“We did it!” I said to the driver, giving him a high five as I climbed into the rented tour bus. “Way to go!” he cheered, slapping my hand. Our Homewood Middle School choir had just won an award at a competition at Six Flags Over Georgia in Atlanta, and we were headed back home to Birmingham. There were 40 of us kids and three chaperones piling into the bus. We were all plenty tired, and a 150-mile trip lay ahead. After tossing our stuff above the seats, we curled up to watch “Space Jam” on the video monitors. I’d chosen the middle rear seat. At five-three I was the shortest guy on our basketball team, but I liked to stretch my legs out into the aisle.

Soon after we hit Interstate 20, I noticed that most of the kids were already asleep.

, I decided and leaned back to catch some z’s myself.

I woke up on the floor.

The bus bumped up and down hard. I reached for a seat back and held on tight. Everything was pitch-black outside, but I could hear trees scraping and banging against the bus as we ripped through the woods. Kids screamed. A backpack landed on my head.

It was like we hit a wall or something. The bus shuddered and flipped over like a roller coaster, slamming down on its side. I held on, but all around me kids tumbled out of their seats, everybody piled on top of each other. “Help!” somebody yelled.

Then we stopped. The motor was still chugging, but the headlights must have been smashed. The bus filled with smoke.

There wasn’t any time to be scared. I reached up, grabbing hold of a seat above my head. Slowly I started to swing, hand over hand.

Stepping on the seats below me, I made my way forward as fast as I could in the dark. I could hear my friends crying all around me, but I couldn’t see them. “Calm down, you guys,” I called. “We’ll be okay.” But how? The bus was on its right side. The door was flat against the ground. How would we get out?

When I reached the front of the bus a man groaned, “Who’s there?” I knew his voice—Police Sgt. James Jennings, one of our chaperones.

“It’s Kyle,” I said. “What happened?”

Continued on page 2: I stared into the blackness, and suddenly a narrow beam of light pierced the night... »