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| In an Oct. 28, 2013, photo provided by the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority, NFTA bus driver Darnell Barton poses in front of a bus in Buffalo, N.Y. On Oct. 18, 2103, Barton’s decisive action stopped a woman from leaping from a roadway bridge to her death on to the highway below. Caught between the rules of his job and his training as a first responder, Barton stopped his bus, grabbed the woman and brought her back over the rail to safety. |
BUFFALO, N.Y.
(AP) -- A bus driver is being hailed as a hero for preventing a woman
from jumping off a Buffalo highway overpass.
About
20 McKinley High School students had just stepped aboard Darnell
Barton's Metro bus Oct. 18 when he spotted a woman who had climbed over a
guardrail and stood leaning over the afternoon traffic zipping along
the Scajaquada Expressway below.
With cars and an occasional pedestrian continuing to pass by her, Barton wasn't sure at first that the woman was in distress.
He
stopped his bus, opened the door and asked if she needed help, at that
moment conflicted between the rules of his job, which required him to
call his dispatcher, and his training as a former volunteer firefighter
and member of the Buffalo Special Police, which told him that if he made
contact, he shouldn't break it.
"It was an
interesting situation, knowing what you know and knowing what you have
to do," he said by phone Wednesday. "Dispatch picked up. I remember
giving my location and saying, `Send the authorities, this young lady
needs help' and then dashing the phone down."
The
bus video system captures Barton, 37, leaving the bus and the
20-something woman looking back at him. Her gaze then returns to the
traffic below.
"That's when I went and put my
arms around her," said Barton, a father of two. "I felt like if she
looked down at that traffic one more time it might be it."
With
the woman in a bear hug, Barton asked if she wanted to come back over
the rail. She hadn't spoken up to that point but said yes.
The
video shows Barton tenderly helping her climb back over the guardrail
and sit down. Then he sits next to her on the concrete. He asked her
name and other questions to distract her, he said, learning she was a
student.
"Then she said, `You smell good,'" he said.
A
corrections officer and a female driver who'd been behind the bus came
to help, speaking to the woman until police and an ambulance arrived.
"While
I was holding her, listening to their questions, I just prayed," the
bus driver said. "Whatever was on her mind, it had her. It really,
really had her."
When the ambulance drove
away, Barton got back on his bus - and received a standing ovation from
the high school students and other passengers who'd been watching
through the windows. He finished his route, wrote up a report and went
home.
"Being the humble individual that
Darnell is, he didn't write it in a way that was going to call attention
to himself," said C. Douglas Hartmayer, spokesman for the Niagara
Frontier Transportation Authority. "It was: I did it, got back on my bus
and continued. That speaks volumes about his demeanor and character."
Barton wishes he could speak with the woman again to make sure she's OK.
"Things
like this put what's important in perspective," he said. "You hug your
kids a little tighter, kiss your wife a little bit longer. You're
grateful.
"Things may not be perfect," he said, "but as we say, they're a little bit of all right."
