A father and his 13-year-old son jumped into the pond near their house Thursday, pulling elementary school kids to safety from an overturned school bus.
James Anna and his son Colin Anna dove into the water, without hesitation. Neither one is normally there for pick-up duty, but just happened to be meeting the bus near their home yesterday.
"I just saw the bus in the water and I knew there were kids in there and even possibly my own daughter and so I just wanted to get there as fast as I could and what I did hear was screams," James Anna said.
Sheer terror after a Mary E. Bryant elementary school bus plunged into a pond near the Anna's home. James and Colin were there waiting to pick up 8-year-Audrey.
"At first I thought my sister was in that bus and that was really my main concern besides getting all the other kids out and to safety," 13-year-old Colin Anna said.
Both jumped into the water; first father, then son.
"There was six or eight kids pushed all the way up to the front and all screaming help me help me the first thing I actually remember seeing was a little girl in the back of the bus and she was up to her chin," James said.
"The bus was turned sideways so there's lights on the top of the bus that I used as footsteps to get up there I was trying to climb to the bus so I could look through the windows and see you was still in there while my dad was going through the windshield," Colin said.
Once inside, James ducked underwater, searching.
"Those two times that I dove down that was pretty pretty pretty eerie I mean I can imagine if you would find a kid stuff or something under the water so think goodness that didn't happen," James said.
Colin walked away with just a few stitches. Today, both feel very lucky and humble.
"Anybody would've done the same thing we just reacted I mean if you see a bus in your neighborhood in a pond and there's people on it I mean you're going to jump in the pond," James said.
"You know I wouldn't call myself a hero but the real heroes for the kids on the bus that made it through all that got out alive," Colin said.
James said his daughter was in another bus, two buses behind the one that crashed. He said he's incredibly proud of his son for jumping in to help.
