MONTICELLO – On March 5 a Monticello Central School District bus was traveling back from BOCES Career and Technical Education program when the bus driver experienced a medical emergency and began entering Route 17 in Liberty in the wrong direction. 

Two students on the bus sprang into action and stopped the bus before it entered the highway, stopping on the side of the road on the exit ramp before encountering any other vehicles. There were no reported injuries. 

According to the district’s Superintendent Matthew Evans, senior student Gavin Shupe went to the driver and had the driver slow down and pull over, while classmate Emma Stanton pulled the emergency brake. 

Evans said the driver is now feeling better and has been reassigned and no longer driving the school’s buses.

The students will be honored at the upcoming meeting of the school board on March 19.

“Your actions were truly heroic,” Evans told Shupe. “Yours and Emma’s responses prevented a serious accident. In my 30-plus years of education this is the most courageous act I’ve seen done by students.”

Shupe, who is a member of the Rock Hill Volunteer Ambulance Corps, is planning on going into emergency medicine. 

Evans asked him what was going through his mind on that day.

“You see that and you’re like ‘we’re going to be heading into oncoming traffic,’” Shupe said. “It’s not something you think about—you see it and you go. Because I’m trained as an EMT it’s part of my training.”