A survivor of Muscogee County school bus fire tells how they escaped

His video provided the most detailed public images of Monday afternoon’s fire on Muscogee County School District bus No. 545. Now, in an interview with the Ledger-Enquirer, Shaw High School freshman Zack Grimes describes how he and eight other students, along with the driver and another adult, escaped the flames without injury.

While riding the bus in the Maple Ridge subdivision, Zack heard five or six “metallic” popping sounds, which he thought were “just some rocks” on the road hitting the side of the bus, he said. But around 30 seconds later, when white smoke started billowing from the engine, the driver stopped the bus and hollered for everyone to get off as quickly as possible through their nearest exit, said Zack, 14.

“White smoke was starting to gush into the cabin from behind her,” he said.

The students remained calm, followed directions and exited the bus in “30 to 40 seconds,” Zack said. Roughly half of them went with the driver through the front door and the rest went through the emergency exit in the rear with the other female adult. Zack figured she was the driver’s supervisor.

But there was a complication.

Zack was “a little” scared, he said, when the front door of the bus initially didn’t open and the driver and some students had to “forcefully push it open,” he said. “It didn’t budge at first, so we just put all our backs into it.”

When everyone was off the bus, the driver called 911, Zack said. While the students waited for the fire truck to arrive, Zack was amazed at the fire’s destructive power.

“It started next to the wheels in the front of the bus by the stairs,” he said, “and it proceeded to melt the rubber on the tires and started filling the cabin.”

Zack called his sister, Dakota Grimes, a junior at Columbus High School, and asked her to pick him up. Meanwhile, he used his cellphone to record video of the scene.

“After about 5 minutes,” he said, “it started to spread a lot faster, toward the back of the bus.”

Another 5 minutes later, Zack said, the fire truck arrived. By that time, the fire had reached about halfway through the bus, he said.

“Black smoke was belching out of it faster than I’ve seen lots of things,” he said, “like water coming out of a waterfall.” Seeing and hearing some of the bus windows shatter from the fire’s heat helped Zack understand what could have happened if they hadn’t escaped in time.

As he watched the flames spread into the passenger area, Zack thought, “It was a lot different than any fire I’ve seen. … They moved a lot more violently, and they put out a lot more smoke.”

Asked what grade he would give the driver and supervisor for the way they handled the emergency, Zack didn’t hesitate: “An A.”

“They did a good job of making sure everybody was off the bus and nothing was left behind and making sure everybody was safe and nobody was hurt and called the authorities as soon as they got off the bus,” he said.

Zack’s mother, Carman Grimes, learned about the incident at work when her son’s text message informed her that Dakota would pick him up because his bus caught fire. Mrs. Grimes, a project manager at TSYS, thought her son meant the fire happened before the bus picked up the students, so she wasn’t too concerned. But when she got home, Zack showed her the video he had recorded.

“I was completely floored,” she said. “… I was just completely surprised that they all managed to get off of there that quick.”

Grimes was relieved her son listened to the driver and safely got off the bus – and she is grateful for the driver’s quick and proper reaction.

Asked what she would tell the driver if she could, Grimes said, “Thank you for taking care of my kid. He’s the whole world to me, so thank you for making sure he got home safe.”

The driver, who has declined the Ledger-Enquirer’s request for an interview, actually was a substitute on that route, Zack said. The bus was a replacement, MCSD superintendent David Lewis has said.

Greg Lang, deputy chief of Columbus Fire and Emergency Medical Services, said his department was unable to determine the cause of the fire.

“When you get an engine compartment burned up that bad, it’s hard to pinpoint it,” Lang said. “Pretty much all the evidence is burned up.”

It will be up to MCSD and its insurance company to decide whether to pay experts to further investigate the incident and try to determine the cause, Lang said.

Lewis told the Ledger-Enquirer in an email Wednesday, “A report and claim have been filed with the Georgia School Boards Association Risk Management Fund. We will cooperate with them in any way possible.”

This story was originally published October 28, 2017 at 11:08 AM with the headline "A survivor of Muscogee County school bus fire tells how they escaped."