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BRISBANE - A quick-thinking 16-year-old Queensland girl will be nominated for a bravery award after she commandeered an out-of-control bus full of children when its driver passed out at the wheel.
Police said Laura Simpson almost certainly saved the lives of everyone aboard the Greyhound bus when she grabbed the wheel and steered it back to safety after it careered off the Warrego Highway near Muckadilla, in south-west Queensland, early today.
Roma police Inspector Graham Coleman described Laura's actions as heroic.
"(She's) obviously saved injury, if not (the) life of people on the bus," Insp Coleman said.
Police will nominate her for a bravery award.
The bus, full of students on their way home for school holidays, ran off the highway around 3am (AEST) when the driver began to feel faint.
Police said the driver attempted to pull the coach over to the side of the road but blacked out.
The bus then left the road, careered into a dry creek bed and struck a road sign, narrowly missing a concrete drain.
Laura, who does not yet have her drivers' licence, was sitting three seats behind the driver and leapt into action after noticing something was wrong.
"The bus started to run off the road with a bit of a jolt and a bang, and she looked across at the driver and said he was blue and looked stiff," Laura's mother Megan Simpson said today.
"So she leapt over to see what on earth was happening, because they were heading for the scrub at this point. There was a river ... up in front of them.
"His (the driver's) eyes were rolling back in his head and he had his foot on the accelerator. She grabbed the wheel and kept the bus straight."
Ms Simpson said Laura, who was returning to her Longreach home from St Margaret's Anglican Girls School in Brisbane, managed to wake the driver, who eventually lifted his foot off the accelerator and pulled the bus to a halt.
Ms Simpson said the driver then passed out again.
She said Laura grabbed a torch and evacuated the children from the bus before ringing an ambulance and Greyhound.
They waited on the side of the road for four hours until a replacement driver arrived from Charleville, around 250km away.
Ms Simpson said the passengers were mostly school children aged from years six to 12.
"We're just lucky she was quick thinking and just acted," Ms Simpson.
"Like bush kids, she's been driving since she was about 10 or 11 around the place, but she's never experienced a bus."
Greyhound said in a statement none of the 38 passengers was injured.
Ambulance staff checked them on site.
"The original driver has now been sent home after being taken to hospital for a check-up," the company said.
Greyhound said the Department of Transport had been notified of the incident.
Laura is expected to arrive home this afternoon.
- AAP
