PAYNESVILLE, Minn. — A watchful school girl who was about to board her bus averted tragedy last Friday near Paynesville, Minn.
Dash cam caught the incident on camera. As the bus pulled up and stopped on a rural highway near where seventh grader Alexis Schwartz lives, she noticed a semi barreling toward her. The bus stopped, lowered its arm and had its lights flashing. As Schwartz took a step toward the bus, she noticed the semi wasn’t slowing down.
“Traffic just flies by,” Mike Egerman, bus driver, said.
The semi truck passed the bus on the shoulder, right where Schwartz had been standing.
“As the semi went by there was nothing but dust, and I thought she was dead,” Egerman said. “All of a sudden her little face appeared.”
The driver of the semi never stopped.
“It’s unbelievable he didn’t stop,” Egerman said. “She could’ve been long gone.”
For Egerman, he said the incident terrified him.
“I was so shook up the rest of the day. It was really a difficult day for me,” he said in an interview with StarTribune.com. “This is small-town rural Minnesota, I know those kids almost like they’re family.”
Several people saw what happened, but no one caught the semi’s license plate. Police reached out to the public asking for their assistance in locating the driver. Hours later the driver contacted authorities. It’s unclear if charges will be filed.
“I’m lucky I survived,” Schwartz said.
See video of the incident below:
