Ebro Ahmed was on a break outside his family's Ya Bricks Snacks and Tobacco store on Monday afternoon when he noticed a yellow school bus passing by with its door flung open. He said he saw the driver with foam coming out of his mouth, which can be a symptom of a seizure.
Ahmed told the Guardian he sprinted to the bus, leapt through the door and tossed his phone and glasses at two girls in the front seat to free his hands. With frightened children screaming around him, he pulled the emergency brake and brought the vehicle to a stop. No one on board or on the street was injured.
The Saint Paul public school district confirmed there had been a medical emergency on the bus that day and that paramedics responded. Another bus came to pick up the 19 students onboard and take them home, the district said. The driver was brought to a hospital, discharged and resting at home.
Ahmed said the Qu'ran verse declaring that whoever saves a life is as if they saved all of humanity came to mind in the moment. He also credited the medical TV drama Grey's Anatomy with teaching him what to do in situations he could never have imagined. "I didn't do it for me. It was selflessness in the name of God," he said.
The National Safety Council estimates that about 20.3 million children ride school buses across the US daily, a number large enough for driver-related emergencies to occasionally occur, and quick-thinking bystanders can often help avert disaster.
Ahmed, who said he is US-born, described the challenges his parents, immigrants from Eritrea, have faced running the store during the mass deportation campaign pursued by Donald Trump during his second presidency. He said business had dropped since federal immigration agents descended on Saint Paul and nearby Minneapolis as part of what the administration called Operation Metro. "It's been hard ... as a small east African business," he said.
He has received a $1,000 token of appreciation from a local marketing and media company, an invitation to speak on at least one panel, and congratulations from a city council member and an uncle in Europe. He said seeing his story trend among Eritrean circles made him proud to represent Eritreans and east Africans "in a good way".