Middle school students get big lesson on bus safety

By Eve­lyn Long -

Escap­ing from the rear emer­gency door on the smoke filled school bus was a scary thing for Mount Gilead Mid­dle School stu­dent Lane Smith. “I couldn’t see a thing. I was scared.”

It was Bus Safety Week and one of the events orga­nized by the staff was the fill­ing of a bus with (harm­less) smoke by the Mount Gilead Fire Depart­ment. Forty Mid­dle School stu­dents who had brought let­ters of per­mis­sion from their par­ents, were seated in the bus. The rest of the Mid­dle School stu­dent body watched as smoke filled the bus. When it was filled, the emer­gency rear door was opened the stu­dents escaped in an orderly and rapid fashion.

Alexan­der Artrip said “I started cough­ing.” Jaclyn Ship­man said “It was like a big white blan­ket and I couldn’t even see my hand.” “I couldn’t breathe,” said Ailene McLaugh­lin. Mor­gan Mur­phy said “I knew I’d be okay– but it was hard for me to breathe — I was sit­ting in back.” Jor­dan Sagar said “I was sit­ting in back, I couldn’t see but it tasted like candy,” and Zachary Sel­l­ars said he was sit­ting up front.

“It was hard to see but I had to believe I’d be okay — so it didn’t scare me.”

The Mt. Gilead Fire Depart­ment pumped harm­less smoke into the bus to make the demon­stra­tion realistic.

Ran­som Linnaberry and Kayla Laven­der con­curred with their classmates.

Brenda Legros, bus trans­porta­tion super­vi­sor, said there are 17 buses in the Mount Gilead fleet and 15 make runs every day car­ry­ing 700 stu­dents. One of those buses trans­port stu­dents to the Colum­bus School for the Blind and Deaf, another trans­ports hand­i­capped stu­dents on a con­tract with Galion and Card­ing­ton. A third bus trans­ports stu­dents to Tri-Rivers Career Center.

Stephanie Clark, a bus dri­ver, said 25 mil­lion kids ride buses daily in the U.S. and they travel one mil­lion miles in a day. She also said that six buses catch fire each day in the U. S.

Bus fires can be caused by at least four things; (1) power steer­ing and trans­mis­sion flu­ids have a flash point sim­i­lar to gaso­line so while engine oil and diesel fuel are less prone to ignite, these flu­ids drip­ping on the exhaust sys­tem or near the elec­tri­cal spare can ignite quickly. (2) fail­ure to refill the oil in the hub after a brake job; (3) Dual wheels can cre­ate fric­tion and enough heat to start a fire and (4) elec­tri­cal increas­ing due to com­pli­cated cir­cuit breaker on today’s buses.

The best defenses were out­lined as were the proper responses to school bus fires. One of the three lat­ter is Edu­ca­tion: train­ing of dri­vers, pas­sen­gers and pub­lic. Brad Sharp was the dri­ver who sat in the bus that was filled with smoke.

Other activ­i­ties related to Bus Safety week include a poster con­test for the Mid­dle School and grade school stu­dents and an essay con­test for the high school stu­dents. Grade school win­ners will be given a pizza party.

Poster con­test win­ners will rewarded with (1st place) four tick­ets to Fort Rapids Water Park in Colum­bus; (2nd place) will receive $50 cash; (3rd place) will receive four tick­ets to Splat­ter Park, Mount Gilead.

Mt. Gilead Junior High School stu­dents learn about bus safety as they pre­pare to watch a drill.

Posted by Taylor Kaser on Nov 14 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.