Bus Breakdown!

Well, I experienced my first ever disaster of sorts last week, when my bus broke down while still half loaded! It's every bus driver's worst nightmare...driving a bus full of children and watching your gauges go nuts and your bus lose all power, knowing you've tried everything you can think of to stop it before it's too late, but unfortunately to no avail!

So there I was, driving to my next stop, when I realized I had no signal lights and I was losing power at a very rapid rate, so I took it around one last corner and pulled over in a safe location to investigate. My battery gauge which reads volts was way down in the red and the whole bus was sputtering and coughing barely clinging to life, so I reached for my life-line out on the road ~ my 2-way radio which links me to dispatch ~ only to discover it too was dead! Could this really be happening to me?! I closed my eyes momentarily, took a deep breath, opened my eyes and decided that yes, this really could be happening to me!!! Since the power seemed to be declining at a steady pace, I had to think quickly and started to prioritize what needed to be done, so I pressed the gas peddle down to give it a little extra juice and switched off all of my lights, which thankfully gave me just enough of a boost to get my radio working again!!! Hooray...suddenly I had hope where I had none before! So I got on my radio and sent out an SOS!

After dispatch assessed the situation and came to the same conclusion as I already had...the bus was dying, and fast, she called for another driver to come and pick up the kids that were left on my bus, and informed me that I would have to limp it in across town to the garage, during rush hour, at dusk with no lights or signals! Well, that just made my day! Now I was really cranky!

So there we sat on the side of the road, in a downed bus, while the kids all went wild (as kids seem to do when buses break down!) and Harrison bawled his eyes out after one little grade 3 girl told him we had run out of gas! Just thinking the bus had broken down didn't seem to upset him, as that offered some hope of still being bailed out, however, I guess the idea that we had no gas offered NO HOPE, so he lost it! Finally the other driver showed up and drove off with my kids, and left me to my own devices to get my bus in to maintenance. I slowly made my way across town, with no lights or radio to call for help, and using those ridiculous hand signals you are supposed to use (but never do!) for riding your bike! I finally gave up and did a quick evaluation, and figured since I am bigger than all the cars out there, if I just nudged my way over, eventually they'd get out of my way and let me in!!! And I was right!

I just barely made it in before dark, and managed to find a spare bus to get me by until they could fix the alternator in mine, and finally made it home with a very hungry little Harrison at 7pm! What a day that was! Those are the kind of days you hope are few and far between, and when they do happen you pray it isn't -40 and blizzarding!!!! However this story has a happy ending, as I now have my bus back and it seems to be working fine....for this week!!! Keep your fingers crossed for me though!