A school bus driver being hailed as a hero after she brought her crippled bus to a stop after it drove over a washed-out section of road last week said she is overwhelmed by the attention.
“I don't feel like a hero,” Tammy Bodman, a 38-year-old bus driver for Chinook's Edge School Division, told the Innisfail Province on Thursday. “I had a lot of guilt yesterday thinking I could have done more – I should have. I really beat myself up yesterday because I'm a bus driver – that's my priority.”
Since the accident on June 22, Bodman has received well wishes from co-workers, school staff, parents and complete strangers. She said her voicemail is completely full with messages of gratitude.
Bodman, a six-year bus driver, was driving her normal route eastbound on Twp. Rd. 350 around 8:25 a.m. on June 22 when she spotted what she thought was shadows from the trees creeping across the road. Bodman said the early morning sun was in her eyes as she drove down the hill just west of Rge. Rd. 284.
“I was just on that road the day before and it was perfectly fine,” she said of the route she has travelled for the past three years. “It looked like nothing out of the ordinary.”
After striking the washed out portion of road, the bus cleared the three-metre gap before landing hard on the other side.
Eleven-year-old Levi Worthington, one of 12 Bowden Grandview School students on the bus at the time of the accident, said Bodman fought to bring the bus under control after it landed – its undercarriage destroyed. Bodman's actions were heroic, he added.
“We were going for the right side where all the water was but then she cranked it hard enough to pull it back onto the road,” said Worthington, who had boarded the bus only minutes before the accident.
“I thought that if we went through those trees … we were going to roll into the swamp,” Bodman recalled. “I had no tires left – I didn't realize that at the time. But I managed to get us back on that road.”
Innisfail RCMP Const. Myles Hayden said the injuries could have been more serious if not for Bodman's efforts to keep the crippled vehicle under control following the accident.
“That lady kept the bus on the road,” he said. “It's a credit to her.”
Worthington, a Grade 6 student, said the students were traumatized from the experience. In a stroke of luck, the bus was only half-full that morning – Bodman typically picks up 24-32 along the route.
“Most of the little kids were crying,” Worthington recalled. “The big kids in the back were just shooken up a bit, same with me.”
Following the accident Bodman contacted her supervisor, who in turn dialled 911, Hayden said. Guardian Ambulance, the Innisfail Fire Department and Innisfail RCMP quickly responded to the scene to tend to the injured. Bodman said her training got her through the incident. She said she didn't know what she had hit until she returned to the scene later in the day and saw the gap.
Chinook's Edge School Division spokesperson Sandy Bexon said three students – two in Grade 6 and one in Grade 9 – and Bodman were transported to hospital. The two younger students, a boy and a girl in Worthington's class, and Bodman were released a short time later. The Grade 9 student was transported to hospital in Red Deer with a jaw injury that required surgery, Bexon explained. The student was released the next day.
Marty Campbell, Red Deer County's director of operations, said a beaver dam likely contributed to the washout. Campbell confirmed contractors had been in the area the week before the accident, trapping a beaver and removing 60 to 70 per cent of a beaver dam in order to get water flowing through the culvert. Campbell said there were no obvious signs of a potentially bigger problem.
“It happened overnight,” he said of the washout. “There was no indication there was a new emergency there.”
Bodman hasn't been behind the wheel of a school bus since the incident, but will try to before the end of the year. She'll return to driving full-time in the fall.
“I'm trying to get over it,” she said, noting she's had a tough time sleeping since the incident. “I guess that's human nature.”
Campbell said the road would be closed for a number of days while county officials conduct repairs.
“We want to get it right and repair it right before we open the road,” he said. “That's always our intention – to repair things the right way.”
See this week's Mountain View Gazette for what's being done to improve road conditions in Red Deer County.
