TAMPA, Fla., Nov. 18 (UPI) -- When a bus driver suffered a fatal heart attack and his vehicle veered toward the edge of a Florida bridge, his passengers came to their own rescue.
None of the five passengers was injured in the incident on the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay, the St. Petersburg Times reported Wednesday.
Bus driver Thomas Grove, 61, of Pinellas Park, Fla., died a few hours later at a hospital.
When Grove was stricken, he fell out of his chair. Passenger Kenneth McAllister, 70, shouted to his wife and another woman to grab the wheel after the bus struck a three-foot concrete wall and kept going. It was swerving along, 197 feet above Tampa Bay.
While the women held the wheel McAllister scrambled into the seat and pushed the brakes, finally stopping the vehicle.
"It happened so fast. We all felt so lucky to be alive," McAllister said later.
The bus was operated by Martz First Class Coach in St. Petersburg for Amtrak, which uses it to shuttle passengers from Fort Myers to a rail station in Tampa.
