Panic Factor (1980)

[Music] Hi, I'm Mark Emerson from North Hills. Could you tell me where the High School Highlights reporters are meeting? On the observation deck, honey, where they always meet. Sorry, this is all new to me. I'm subbing for Rick Steiner till he gets out of the hospital. The hospital? Oh my. He wasn't in that awful Yep, he was. I can include all the clubs involved in some background on the March of Dimes. Mr. Emerson, I presume. Right. Sorry I'm late. I'm Lou Walker, editor of the Sentinel. This is Carol Song from Tylertown Area High School, Jennifer Dao representing Central, Frank Shields from Westside, and Kathleen Strauss from Buchanan. Have a seat, Carol. I was saying I could include all the clubs involved in the fund drive and some background on the March of Dimes. Okay, but go easy on the background. And remember, this is a section on youth activities. Let's see. Frank, what news from the land of the Raiders? You have a choice between student council elections and preparation for the senior trip. I'll take them both. Kathleen, can I do something on Guys and Dolls, even if I have the female lead? Me and my big mouth. I really didn't want to do either one. I know exactly what you mean. Set construction, stuff like that. Sure, why not? And Jennifer, you said that you wanted to do something on Central's prom. I didn't say I want to. I said I couldn't think of anything else. That's fine. That's what this page is for. And Mark, I'd like to do something on last week's bus accident. What about it, Mark? The Sentinel's already done a couple of stories on it. What more is there to tell? Well, yeah. You gave us the who, what, when, and where, but not the why. Why, for example, didn't more kids get out sooner before the bus caught fire. And why did so many kids get hurt trying to get out? You could interview kids who were on the bus, like Rick. You could find eyewitnesses. I could use some help. You guys are the ones with experience. I'm just a rookie. Well, it's not exactly what I was thinking of when I started High School Highlights. You sound like a sensor to me. But it's a first rate idea. Stick around and I'll show you what we have in our file. These are the only shots we have. By the time we got there, the injured had already been taken away. And the only thing that the photographer saw was the bus being pulled from the goalie. It was forced into. Forced into? Yeah. Some jerk was passing on a curve. When he served to avoid a head-on, he forced the bus off the road and it exploded in flames just like in the movies. Wrong. An eyewitness said the fire started after the wreck. In fact, 3 or 4 minutes after. But 3 minutes is plenty of time to evacuate a bus. Where was the driver? Unconscious. I still don't understand why anybody was burned. Bruised maybe, but not burned. That makes two of us. Well, you won't find the answer. standing around here. Go to it. Thank you. It's okay. He said there's nothing we can do to hurt that bus. Well, let's get this over with. This place gives me the creeps. I think it's neat. Just think, Jen. Someday you'll be able to tell your grandchildren you actually saw a nil. Imagine that. Whoa. Do you see what I see? Come on, Frank. We're supposed to be checking out the bus. This will just take a minute. I'll catch up with you. Nice. Really nice. [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Mark, help. Help. [Music] Get me out of here. There's a rattlesnake in there. Did it get you? No, man. But it was close. That thing was coming across the seat right at me. Right at me. Some rattlesnake. A poor thing. You scared it half to death. Well, that makes us even. Do you want to catch your breath or you up for checking out the bus? Let's get it over with. This place gives me the creeps. There's nothing wrong with this door. Let's check out the one at the back. Look at this mess. Must have been some fire. There's nothing wrong with this door either. You're forgetting the bus was at an angle. Could be they had trouble pushing up on the door to open it. But they could have gone out here, right, Jen? Well, according to what I read in the library, windows can be used as exits if there's no other way out. You mean these pop out? Not those. Only the ones up front will pop out in one piece. You have to hit them hard in the lower third of the windshield. What about these? Well, it depends what kind they are. One kind will shatter into thousands of diamondsized pieces when you hit it. The other kind will crack when you first hit it. And if you keep on hitting it, the glass will break along those cracks and fall out in big chunks. No kidding. Easy. Hitting windows with this is not recommended. Well, what are you supposed to do? Carry a sledgehammer around with you? No, you're supposed to use this. Every bus has either a wrecking bar or a fire axe. I wonder why the kids in a wreck didn't try knocking out the windows. I wonder why the kids in the wreck didn't just go immediately out the front door. We know this door wasn't jammed, and we also know they had time to use it. Walker said the bus didn't catch fire till a couple minutes after the wreck. You know something? I don't think we learned much by coming out here. Maybe not from the bus, but I think we did learn something from your runin with that snake. What do you mean? I'm talking about the panic factor. If you've been thinking, instead of screaming and pounding, you could have reached out the window and opened the door yourself. Back off. It's hard to think straight in a situation like that. That's just what I mean. Maybe the kids on the bus were having the same problem. We've got to find out what they were thinking at the time of the accident. Call 611. No, I don't mind talking about it. I mean, even if I did, how could I say no to a newspaper that sends not one but three reporters to interview me? Mr. Walker thought three heads would be better than one, especially when the one was his. Nice guy. Want me to tell him about the snake? Come on, you guys. We don't have all afternoon. Okay. Okay. Our first probing question is, what do you remember about the accident? All I remember is talking to Phil when I notice everybody on the other side of the aisle looking out the windows. They're all saying stuff like, "He's not going to make it." And Tank Jackson's yelling, "Go, go, go. like it's some kind of race. I stood up to get a better look, which turns out to be one of the dumber things I've ever done. If id stayed seated, I would have been thrown against the seat in front of me, which is padded, but I was standing and I got flipped into the aisle, which isn't. That's when I got this. And when I started seeing double up above me is Mrs. Burket and she's not moving. She's bleeding and she's not moving. Then I see all kinds of legs and and then Tank Jackson collapses on me. One of them is bad enough, but I'm seeing double. So it looks like two tanks are coming at me. And when he lands, it feels like two tanks. Do you want to know what it's like to be buried in blubber? Spare us. So, you and Tank were blocking the way to the front exit. That's right. Phil was in here earlier, one of the walking wounded, and he said the pileup, plus Mrs. Burkett's bleeding, plus the smell of gasoline, really panicked everybody. Gasoline? Yeah, like when you flood the engine of a car, except stronger. Anyway, Tank and I could have gotten Starlled quicker, but not with all those kids pressing in. When the fire broke out, we were still lying there like hot dogs on a grill. Well, what about bus evacuation drills? What about them? Aren't they supposed to stress orderly evacuation? Sure. And they do. Twice a year. We practice orderly evacuations in the high school parking lot. Twice a year. They explain the exit routes, windows included, and where the wrecking bar is and the fire extinguisher and the first aid kit. It's all very orderly. Too much so maybe because accidents aren't orderly. They're chaos. When you're panicked, it's easy to forget everything you ever learned about getting off a bus. Doesn't North Hills have bus helpers? I guess not. I don't even know what you mean. They're student assistants who I'm sorry, but visiting hours are over. What's all this about bus helpers, Jen? They're kids that get special training in emergency procedures. It's funny. I didn't even think about them till just now. Must be because I haven't ridden the bus since grade school. Grade school? I thought this was some new safety program. Nope. Central's had them for years. I thought everybody had them. Not Westside. Obviously not North Hills. Well, if you want to know more about what they do, I'll set up an interview with Central's director of transportation. I think his name is Alan Lucas. You said you have three helpers on every bus, right? One up front, one in the middle, and one for the back. Why don't you take one of those positions when we get on board? I should emphasize that these students are helpers. They're under the direction of the driver, unless of course a driver is injured. Does one of them take charge if the driver is unconscious? Not really. They're trained to work as a team. For example, if the front door could be used, one helper would open it and the helper in the middle would come forward and assist the students in getting out. Couldn't that be done by the same person who opened the door? No. He or she has another job which is leading the students at least 100 ft away from the bus and keeping them there as a group. That person also keeps an eye out for strays. strays. There are kids who've been dazed or disoriented by a bad accident. They've been known to simply wander off into the woods. What if the front exit's jammed and everybody has to go out the emergency door? Same procedure. Yes, except the person who's assisting has a bit more to do. If it were Jennifer, she'd remind the kids to duck their heads to avoid hitting the door frame and to cushion their landing by flexing their knees when they jump. She'd also helped them out by using the palms up method. Not unless I knew what it was. If you'll meet me back at the emergency door, I'll show you. [Music] Now, imagine I'm a helper and that I've just jumped out. What I'd do to help you is turn around, put my palm like this, reach up for your hand, then lower. Who's first? I guess it helps if you're tall so you can reach up high enough. The major requirements are that the students are interested and that they live toward the end of the bus route. Helpers couldn't help if they all got off at the first stop. I have a question. Well, a statement really. A lot of the senior high kids I know wouldn't go in for being bus helpers. It wouldn't be cool. You know what I mean? They're happier on the other side of authority. I know exactly what you mean. We don't even recruit from senior high. We train kids when they're in elementary school and junior high and hope that they stick with us when they're cool senior high students. And most of them do. I got one for you. If you really want to do it right, why don't you have your evacuation drills on a junk bus? One you could flip on its side, put smoke bombs in, kick windows out, and stuff like that. insurance reasons primarily, kids could get hurt. And second, the situation you just described is only one kind of accident. There's no way to rehearse every conceivable kind of bus wreck. What you do, or what we do anyway, is to make sure that whatever the emergency, there are people trained to handle it. People who won't panic and forget everything they've been taught about getting out of a bus safely. This is good stuff. Could use a few more direct quotes, but uh all things considered, it's not bad. It's not bad at all. Mark hates it. Oh, really? Why? I don't know. I can't put my finger on it. I'll bet I can. You're disappointed because you didn't uncover some monstrous wrong that the newspaper could draw attention to, thereby enraging the citizenry to action. Keep talking. I think you're getting warm. It's a story without bad guys. You're right. In the rough draft, I tried making North Hills a villain for not having bus helpers, but Frank and Jen convinced me otherwise. Using what argument? the argument that North Hills does everything the law requires. Twice a year they conduct evacuation drills, very thorough evacuation drills. According to Rick, they stress that every rider should know what to do in an emergency. That riders can't count on someone helping them out if they forget. It's a different philosophy, but that doesn't make it wrong. Well, as far as I'm concerned, you've done your job. If you just get kids thinking about what's expected of them in an emergency, the question isn't whether they'll think about it. I mean, the wreck itself got them thinking about it. The question is, will they remember what to do if next week or next year or 2 years from now the same thing happens to them? [Music]