"Where did that bus come from?"

Driving a school bus can be a very scary assignment and, although responsible leaders try to plan for the unexpected, it is difficult to prepare for every situation. This became quite apparent one night in the spring of 1977. At the time I was coaching and teaching at Adamsville High School. I was also driving a school bus.

My route was an express assignment that took AHS students from the high school to Michie School located in the southeastern part of McNairy County. The distance was about seventeen miles. 

It so happened that there was a regular passenger on that express bus, a student by the name of Wendell. Now Wendell had a rather impetuous personality, drove a red Ford Maverick, and he had a heavy foot. Like many of the older boys and girls, Wendell would drive his car to the Michie campus, park his vehicle, and catch the express bus (my route) to the high school. In the afternoon, I would deliver him and the other kids back to Michie and they would drive their vehicles home. 

On a Friday afternoon in early spring, my plans were to transport the students to Michie and then drive the bus four more miles to my father-in-law's house. I was going to help him on the farm for the rest of the afternoon and all day Saturday. 

As I dropped the students off that day, I noticed that Wendell got into his car (the red Ford Maverick) and took off, driving at a high speed, slinging gravel against the school building and other cars in the parking lot. Principal Manley Jones tried to stop him but it was too late. We stood there and witnessed that red Maverick vanish out of the gravel parking lot on to Highway 57 making an awful racket. We were startled by the scene he made, but he was gone in a flash.

That same afternoon I left Michie School and drove to my in-law's house where I pulled in and parked the bus. I quickly made connection with my father-in-law, Henry, and in a short period of time I was on the tractor, breaking ground in preparation for the planting of soybeans. 

Henry and I worked late into the night, woke early on Saturday, and farmed all that day until sunset. We finally stopped our work, went to the house for dinner, and then it was time for me to go home to Adamsville.  Remember I had driven there in the school bus.

What happen next was one of the most frightening things that I have ever experienced. As I started home I went by Michie School, crossed the bottom bridge on the Stantonville/Michie Road, and headed north about a quarter of a mile, when suddenly I began to realize that the electrical system on my bus was blinking! In a few short moments my interior and exterior lights went completely out.  It was so dark--everything was black! I could hardly see the road in front of me. The two-lane road was narrow with a ditch on both sides. 

I was afraid that if I tried to get off of the main road too far the bus would tilt into the ditch and land on its side. There were no safety lights. The only thing to do was to get out of the bus and try to flag someone down who might be coming my way. It was such a dark night, so I walked to the back of the bus and stood in the southbound lane of the roadway, as my bus was in the majority of the northbound lane and only partially off of the road. I was hoping to stop any on-coming northbound traffic that might run into the back of the bus.

Finally after what seemed to be a very long time, a car coming from the north appeared.  It was on the side of the road opposite the bus in the southbound lane. The driver slowed and stopped near the front of the bus. I made my way toward the vehicle and was beginning to ask the driver for help when I heard a loud and thunderous sound coming from the south out of the bottom I had just passed through. The sound almost made my hair stand straight up! Where had I heard that sound before? There was no doubt that it was a vehicle coming our way, getting closer and closer upon us, for it was growing louder by the split-second.

It all happened so fast. I was not in any position to try to stop the thing and, even if I was, I surely didn't want to take my life in my own hands to achieve the impossible. But I was at the other end of the bus, the front, near the stopped car, and there was nobody to signal what sounded like a huge monster truck and keep it from ramming into the back of the bus. (Where had I heard that sound??)

Nights can get very dark in the country, especially in the lower elevations. Fog can also present hindrances to good vision. Though it was both dark and foggy that night, what proved to be the greatest hindrance to the vision of that (fast) approaching driver was the headlights of the stopped car in the southbound lane, next to the bus, facing the oncoming vehicle. At that moment, and under those circumstances, the large yellow bus was almost invisible!

But here it came, racing ahead and up from the bottom.  Suddenly I knew it--the sound!  It was Wendell and his red Ford Maverick! As I scrambled to try to signal to him, waving my arms, I heard the most terrible sound--screeching tires and a horrific crash! It was indeed Wendell and the Maverick. He had been propelled almost full speed ahead into the back of the bus!

The next minutes seemed like an eternity. Wendell and his Maverick were lodged partially under the bus. The impact of the wreck was so powerful that his femur bone, the strongest one in the leg, was snapped like a broken match stick.  It was a desperate situation. We had no way to get him out of the car and it was still very dark and remote with no cell phones to call for help. As we ran to the side of his car, we could see that Wendell was conscious. He looked up at us and made a statement I will never forget, "Where did that bus come from?!" 

We tried to comfort him until emergency help could get to us. By this time more people were on the scene and a call for help had been made. I hated it so much for Wendell and it seemed like help was never going to arrive. He was in a daze much of the time. Thankfully the car was only partially under the bus and it did not catch on fire.

But eventually the ambulance arrived and Wendell was on his way to the hospital. The bus was towed to the bus garage. I made my way to the hospital with my father-in-law who came to the scene. I wanted to check on Wendell and talk to his parents. It was such a marvel and a blessing that he escaped with only a broken femur, as bad as that was. After a brief home recovery, Wendell returned to school walking with the aid of crutches. 

What a long, scary night it had been! So what does this story have to do with leadership? Simply put, things are going to happen to us in life. We cannot plan for every situation. I was driving a older bus and the safety equipment was not operational. Furthermore, I should have told the supervisor of transportation in McNairy County about the extended stay at my in-laws. It was such an unfortunate event. It might be easy to put the blame on Wendell, an impetuous young man with a heavy foot, but there were many variables that needed to be explored. How thankful I am that a life was not lost to such an unfortunate incident.

Though it is impossible to prepare for every situation, it is imperative for leaders to take inventory and analysis after a crisis in order to prevent critical mishaps in the future. This was the valuable lesson I learned that night in the spring of 1977.  

Remember, I believe we are all leaders regardless of our position.