New York Bus Driver Talks Girl Off Ledge
Earlier this month, a Buffalo, N.Y., bus driver went above and beyond the call of duty to keep a stranger out of harm's way.
Newly released surveillance video shows a New York bus driver stopping a girl from jumping from a bridge over an expressway to her death
On October 18, 37-year-old Darnell Barton was driving a bus full of McKinley High School students on the Scajaquada Expressway overpass when he spotted a woman on the wrong side of the guard rail.
A surveillance camera shows Barton stopping to pull up next to the woman, who he said seemed "distraught" and "really disconnected."
After repeatedly asking if she was okay and getting minimal responses, Barton approached the woman so he could pull her to safety.
"She turned back to look at me and then back at the traffic and that's when I kind of lunged and got my left arm around her body," Barton told the Buffalo News. "I asked her, 'Do you want to come on this side of the guard rail now?' and that was the first time she spoke to me and said, 'Yeah.'"
Barton then sat with her until the police and firefighters arrived.
"Darnell won't tell you this, but when he went back on his bus, the McKinley students gave him a round of applause," Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority (NFTA) spokesman C. Douglas Hartmayer told the Buffalo News. "That's because of Darnell's modesty, which speaks to his demeanor of being very humble."
Presented by Adam Justice