An eighth-grade student recently averted a tragedy when he brought a careening school bus carrying him and his fellow students to a stop after its driver fell ill from a medical emergency, according to officials who are praising the boy’s actions. Acie Holland III was taking a bus ride home when he realized the woman driving had become unresponsive, his principal, Anna Young, wrote in a letter to the campus community. The bus veered into the oncoming traffic lane, prompting Acie to rush up to the driver, move her foot off the gas pedal and apply the brake. The eighth-grader, comparable in age to year nine in the UK, then “securely parked the bus” before it crashed, Young said in a missive that detailed the close call. The letter – which went viral on parts of the internet dedicated to heartwarming news – recounted how Acie then called 911 for emergency help, checked that the younger students onboard the bus were physically OK and told them to contact their parents. Furthermore, while waiting for first responders to arrive, Acie dialed his grandmother, a nurse, to see if there was anything else he should do, according to the principal’s account. The woman regained consciousness and called her dispatchers, who sent out a safety team and a replacement driver to finish dropping off the children on the bus. “What easily could have resulted in tragedy was avoided due to the quick thinking of … Acie Holland III,” Young wrote. “The Glen Hills school community could not be any prouder of Acie. The compassion and leadership that we see him exhibit daily was taken to the next level.” Separately, in an interview with the Milwaukee television station WTMJ, Acie attributed his leaping into action to an instinct to protect others – and himself. “I was scared, but at the same time I was like, I wanted to just make sure everyone was OK, and that nothing was going to happen while I was there,” Acie – a go-karting enthusiast and skilled wrestler – said to the news outlet. Acie remarked: “That just comes from being raised around positive people and being surrounded by positive people.” WTMJ reported that the boy’s fellow Glen Hills students could be heard chanting “Acie Hero” the day after his bus heroics, when the station went to interview him. Statistics from the US’s National Safety Council show about 111 people are killed annually in school bus-related accidents nationwide. Most of those who die from such mishaps – and the much larger number who are injured – are inside another car, are pedestrians or are bicyclists. School bus crashes in general are relatively rare. One study determined that there are about 63,000 crashes involving buses of all kinds in the US in a typical year. An estimated 490,000 yellow school buses provide transportation each day in the US, making them a safer option for children than walking or getting a regular car ride, the National Safety Council has also found.