A Milwaukee County bus driver had no plans to be a hero on Dec. 30, but video released a month later has put her in the spotlight for helping a distraught young girl after her mother had a seizure.
Michelle Mixon says she had picked up a mother and her six-year-old daughter at 92nd and Mill Road and took them down to 76th and Mill Road where she dropped them off. She said they departed the bus and the pair were at the crossing when video from the bus shows the mother falling to the ground.
“I was loading someone in and I saw her fall and immediately popped my brake, and at that moment, I couldn’t think how to get in touch with the dispatcher so I pulled my cellphone out and called 911 and then started comforting the little girl.”
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Outside the bus, a person can be seen taking their jacket off to cover the mother.
Asked how she felt during the incident, Mixon responded: “Really emotional.”
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“Basically, you just never know what you’re going to do in a situation until you actually are in it,” she said.
It’s not the first time MCTS has dealt with an incident like this.
Spokesperson Brendan Conway told Global News their drivers have had experiences where they have helped various people including a lost 10-year-old boy who was eight kilometres from home, a pregnant woman going into labour, and a passenger having a heart attack just to name a few.
Conway said the response by drivers may be partially a result of the culture established with a big push on customer service as a priority, but said while other larger communities may see similar incidents occurring, their technology helps tell the stories.
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“We have the ability because of some of our video on the bus to go and tell these stories and we’ve made it a priority to do it,” he said.
Part of Mixon’s response in comforting the girl, Conway said, also came from her being a mother and grandmother so her “maternal but also human instincts kicked in.”
The ambulance is then seen arriving on video, though both Conway and Mixon said they were unsure if it was the ambulance she called or one that was driving in the area and was flagged down by bus passengers that were outside helping the woman.
“I don’t know if these were the ones that were dispatched to our bus, but it was one just driving down 76th Street and we flagged them down and they came over,” she said.
She said some people driving by also stopped to help.
Mixon carried the girl to the ambulance once her mother was stabilized.