Michigan boy hailed as hero for preventing bus crash after driver fainted

A community in Michigan is heaping praise on to a seventh-grader who regained control of a school bus whose driver lost consciousness and was on the verge of crashing, according to officials.

Reeves went to the front of the bus after he noticed the driver had fallen, stepped on the brakes and steered away from traffic on the road to bring the vehicle to a stop, according to video obtained by CBS News.

First responders treated the driver for an unspecified medical emergency while the students were loaded on to a different bus and brought safely home.

Of the roughly 111 people who are killed each year in school bus-related accidents in the US, and the much larger number who are injured, the majority are inside another car, or are pedestrians or bicyclists, according to the National Safety Council.

School bus crashes are relatively rare. One study found that there are about 63,000 crashes involving buses of all kinds in the US in a typical year. The organization Schoolbus Fleet estimates that nearly 490,000 yellow school buses provide transportation daily in the US, making them a safer option for children than walking or getting a regular car ride, the National Safety Council added.

Later, Ireta Reeves wrote on Facebook that her son was struggling to cope with the emotions spurred on by the crisis in which he intervened and to speak about it.