A group of 30 students from Sebring High School boarded a chartered bus for a senior trip to Dayton Lagoon on Saturday.
They did not know the bus driver was drunk.
And a Florida man took 30 high school seniors on one graduation bus ride that they will never forget.
Last Saturday, 30 students and six chaperones boarded a Holiday Coach Lines bus for a senior trip to Daytona Beach.
But they soon realized something was wrong when the bus driver, Keith Edward Shifflett, “ran three red lights and was driving the bus recklessly.”
He cut off other drivers and refused to stop the bus despite the students and chaperones yelling at him to do so.
“We drove through the first red light and then drove through that red light,” mother Maggie Hucke said. “At that point, again we are telling him now to stop the bus. ‘Please stop the bus, pull over. Stop the bus.’”
But Shifflett refused to stop the bus and continued with his wild drunk driving.
Hucke called 911 and reported the driver to the authorities.
One chaperone on the trip described the terror felt by everyone on the bus.
“It was extremely scary,” chaperone Rose Singleton said. “The fact that all six of us parents there were screaming extremely loud. We were in terror.”
“They said that he was just a little off and that he was passing out at the wheel,” parent Mychelle Tomak said.
Parent Gisele Diaz was a few cars behind the bus in her own car when her daughter called her.
“She was like this guy is running lights, he’s cutting off people,” Diaz said. “We can hear people in the background screaming.”
“And then I had another of the moms that was in the bus chaperoning as well, and she called me, she’s like, this guy is driving crazy, how do we stop him,” Diaz added.
That is when Gissel Diaz and her husband Freddie decided to take matters into their own hands.
“We kind of took off and rushed to the bus,” Diaz said. “When we made it to the roundabout up here, I was like, ‘Get in front of him and let’s make him stop.’”
Their plan worked and Shifflett finally stopped the bus.
“Not everyone would put themselves and their wife in front of danger like that, especially a big bus as fast as it was going,” Singleton said. “We thank him very, very much.”
Parent Ann Glover called Diaz “the hero of the day.”
Police arrested Shifflett and charged him with DUI, child abuse without great bodily harm, and culpable negligence in connection with the incident.
The graduating seniors actually made it to their destination and ended up having a wonderful time after a bus trip that they will never forget.
“Thankfully, we made it, and they had a great time after all, which is what we wanted, but that incident with the bus driver almost ruined our night,” Diaz said.
DeSantis Daily will keep you up-to-date on any new developments in this ongoing story.
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Author: rg_tracy
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