DISD bus staffers help save children from being swept away in flood waters
DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - A Dallas school bus driver and monitor are being hailed as heroines after they jumped in - literally - to help save some children being swept away in flood waters earlier this week.
"When we got up close, I saw kids in the water," said DISD bus monitor Tekendria Valentine, who at first thought they were playing. "And then I heard the little boy yell out `help'."
Like many North Texans, Valentine had been fascinated by the rising water. She was recording cell phone video from the empty bus as she and her driver were returning to the bus barn. Then they turned down a flooded street, not on their usual route.
"God told me to go that way," said veteran driver Simone Edmond. Then they spotted two children in the neck deep water.
"Before we knew it, we saw both of them get swept across the street," shares Edmond. "The little boy was screaming... so I popped the brakes."
The children's panicked mother asked her to use the bus to try and slow the current as the street filled with flood waters, racing towards a nearby creek.
"Watching it, it looks bad...but actually being it, It's like being in a movie or something," said Tina Garner, the children's mother. "I can't describe in words how you feel in the moment when you're there, dealing with thinking your kids are going to die."
She said they had been asked to play in the rain, but then the water started to rise, triggering a flash flood. Garner's boyfriend was holding on to her 11 and 13-year-olds, but he was fighting the strong current and losing his grip.
"I could see him breathing like this - trying to hold on," said Edmond, before the teenage girl was momentarily pulled away in the current. "And a branch caught her and saved her from getting swept away again."
Neither of the women on the bus could swim, but they used seat belts and wheelchair restraints to make a rope. They tossed the rope and then joined the neighbors who had come running to help.
"We all jumped in and formed a human chain to try and save them," said Edmond.
The relief when the children were pulled onto the bus to safety, they say, was hard to explain.
"It was really heartwarming," says Valentine, "For the little boy to say he wanted to hug me... that made my heart just smile so big."
