Escaped from a burning bus today. No biggie.
by TheGrandPubaa on Oct.07, 2008, under Ricky Coulter is a Death Metal Caveman!
Well, folks, that’s one I can cross off my list. No, I’m not kidding. At approximately 1:10 PM CST, right outside the local Department of Human Services facility, the bus passengers, along with moi, were told to evacuate the bus. Now, here’s the deal. When I got on the bus at the college just twenty minutes earlier, I noticed some smoke, but c’mon, I just figured it was excess exhaust or something. Passing Wal-Mart, it became obvious that it wasn’t just exhaust. A couple minutes later, we were pulling over and rushing off the bus.
Wasn’t exactly blazing, but the insulation was burning enough to cause quite a lot of smoke. IT, the bus company for Hot Springs, were quick to call in the cops and the fire department to take care of the situation.
Now for the funny part. Well, sort of funny. Funny, yet kind of sad. But still funny. Let me set the scene. The bus is parked on a stretch of pavement on a slight decline. The cops parked several feet in front of the bus, down the decline. For reasons unbeknownst to me, just a few minutes after we evacuated the bus, it started rolling down the hill and smacked into the cop car. A lot of things happened in the span of about 3 seconds. The bus driver jumped onto the moving bus as quickly as he could, y’know, to slam on the brakes. One of the cops, a rather large and possibly quite portly one, sprinted over to the cop car, opened the door, and was temporarily knocked unconscious as the bus hit the car. Reason being, the car shifted backwards and knocked the door into him. Right about that time, the bus driver stopped the bus, the cop kind of crumpled over and fell on his butt against the car, and people started rushing over to check on him.
He did end up being put on a stretcher and taken to an ambulance, but he seemed okay. Hopefully he didn’t break anything, or this will come off as pretty douchey.
At some point during the commotion, the bus driver gave each of us passengers an index card to fill out. It had the basics, name, address, phone number, etc. There was also a spot labeled “Remarks” that I was able to have some fun with. I believe I wrote something to the effect of:
My appreciation for an interesting bus ride.
Well, something like that. If they ever mention any of our names in the news, good lord, I hope they mention that quote.
Well, that was the interesting part of my day. Anybody else care to share any near death(hah) experiences?
