It was a normal day for Jeremiah Rutkowski on Thursday, May 7. He had finished getting ready for school and was waiting patiently outside for his school bus to come and pick him up.
And it came, right on time. At 7:15 am in Bouckille, New York, it showed up at his front doorstep. But, as he came walking down his porch steps, the unexpected happened.
As reported by WKTV News 2, the school bus was all of a sudden violently rear-ended by a speeding pickup truck. Jeremiah, a high school senior, had a pretty fair immediate reaction—get out of the way.
He recalled, "I just figured, like, if that thing's not going to stop, it's either going to hit the bus and something's coming flying at me, or the entire truck is coming flying at me."
So he got himself back onto the porch, in a bit of shellshock. Then, his father, Matt Rutkowski, came outside to see what had happened.
"First priority was to make sure my son was safe and good," he explained. He immediately embraced his son before jumping into action and leading the charge to make sure everyone was okay.
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Nobody Had Serious Injuries From the School Bus Crash
Matt, expectedly, was quite worried walking up to the scene. He described it as "disturbing." Fair enough, considering he wasn't sure what he was walking into. But he was lucky to find everyone alert and talking, as he helped chaperone students off the bus.
Jeremiah, a camp counselor, also jumped into action the moment he saw a younger student in need of support. He explained, "Once one of the kids was out of the truck and needed comforting and was sent to the porch, like, my brain just sort of kicked into that child-caring mode."
On Friday, May 8, New York State Police apprehended 35-year-old Joshua Smith. They issued him several traffic tickets. He had apparently been distracted by his phone while in the driver's seat.
The State Police explained, "The investigating trooper determined Smith was following too closely and was distracted while operating the vehicle."
This is a crazy incident. We're glad everyone's okay.
