A South Carolina school bus driver is hailing his 18 kindergarten passengers for thwarting an armed hijacking.
Kenneth Corbin tells Good Morning America that the kids’ curiosity enabled him to hold off the gunman, and what they said to the man is what helped keep them safe for six minutes.
“At the end when they started questioning him, it seemed to have frustrated him because his main objective [was] to get to the next town, but I think we were only on the road about four miles and he just got frustrated with the questions and just told me to stop the bus and get off” says Corbin.
Police believe Jovan Collazo, a 23-year-old trainee from New Jersey in his third week at Fort Jackson, was trying to get home, according to GMA. He remains in custody facing two dozen charges, including 19 counts of kidnapping.
“As we were traveling, I guess he realized there were several students on the bus — kind of scattered throughout,” Corbin explained. “He decided to move all the students up front so he could keep us all in close proximity, and when he did that, especially some of my kindergarteners, they started asking questions.”
The students, according to Corbin, asked if the man was a soldier to which he “hesitantly answered — ‘yes.’”
“They asked him, ‘Why are you doing this?’ to which he didn’t have an answer. They asked, was he going to hurt them? He said ‘No.’ They asked, ‘Are you going to hurt our bus driver?’ He said, ‘No. I’m going to put you off the bus,’” Corbin recalled. “He sensed more questions coming and I guess something clicked in his mind and he said, ‘Enough is enough already,’ and he told me to ‘Stop the bus, and just get off.’”