Exciting school transport
By GreenMoo
@GreenMoo (11833)
February 8, 2013 3:26am CST
We live in a rural are and both my kids go to school on buses. A couple of weeks ago we had a very sudden snow storm and within a couple of hours the roads were getting pretty dangerous so the schools closed and I was told that both children would be brought home.
My eldest arrived a couple of hours later in a council owned 4x4 pickup truck, with horrible tales of how the roads were. Thankfully they passed my partner on the way, who had had to abandon our car and was trying to make his way home on foot so I was relieved to have him home safe too.
But my youngest didn't come home and didn't come home and it got later and later and darker and darker, and the school weren't answering their phone as it was after hours and I was getting quite frantic.
Suddenly we heard a heavy vehicle and ran to the window. Blue flashing emergency lights. Oh hell, what now?
A massive all terrain fire truck came right down our driveway and stopped outside the window. Out jump the fireman, and lift down my son!
Apparently it was the only vehicle they were able to get to us in. Ever since, I've felt like hugging firemen 
My son was beside himself with excitement, obviously. Have your kids ever had an exciting ride home from school?
My son was beside himself with excitement, obviously. Have your kids ever had an exciting ride home from school?8 people like this
15 responses
@WakeUpKitty (8694)
• Netherlands
8 Feb 13
If children over here have an exciting ride it's with the parents. Schoolbusses do not exist in my country. Everybody has to take his/her own children to school and pick them up as well. BTW a friend of mine (living in Belgium) has to do the same. With 10 children (incl. 3 grand children) it takes her over 1.5 hour to get them all at their own school, same with picking them up. Which means a part never is in time.
3 people like this
@GreenMoo (11833)
•
8 Feb 13
My eldest son's school is just under an hour's drive each way and the other school is about 30 minutes in the opposite direction. So to get both kids to school and back myself I would have a minimum of 6 hours of driving each day, 4 of which my youngest would need to be with me in the car for needlessly as he couldn't be home alone.
Quite simply, if there was not school transport, my kids wouldn't go to school. I suspect I am not alone. At least I have a car!
2 people like this
@p1kef1sh (45681)
•
8 Feb 13
Every boy's dream ride! Nope. No exciting rides here although the air ambulance once landed in my parent's garden responding to a 999 call to a neighbour and after the ambulance arrived they let my daughter sit in the cockpit. Not the same as a ride in a fire engine though. Heck, I'm envious!
2 people like this
@Hatley (163776)
• Garden Grove, California
5 Mar 13
just thinking things are so much easier most of the time here in Southern California.but we lived in a gated apt complex the last time. I had an allergic attack and my hubby called the para medics which are attached to the fire dept so a fire truck always accompanies the paramedic truck. so the paramedics got in fine but the fire truck could not negotiate around the narrow road behind our apartment. So the paramedics started an IV of histamine and then let my husband take over. Aas he worked in the hospital so they trusted him. I heard from the manager that they had to back that huge fire truck half way around the complex so they could turn around to drive o t of the complex and leave. there. lol My husband later returned the IV pole to the fire department just a few blocks away .And I learned to always have ab epi pen with me in case someone had MSG in food Ik was served and did no bother to inform us or anyone else their meals had M
SG in them..
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SG in them..
.[@Hatley (163776)
• Garden Grove, California
5 Mar 13
tyhpoos As not Asd out not o t, I not Ik sorry bout that.
@GreenMoo (11833)
•
9 Feb 13
The fire helicopters used the river just next to our place a couple of years ago, and they were lined up waiting over our field waiting to fill up. It was terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. They were just skimming our trees and circling round and round making the most tremendous wind and noise.
My eldest used to get taken to school by the fire service every day, which I thought was a fabulous use of a resource that sits unused the majority of the time. Not in a proper all singing, all dancing fire truck though!
1 person likes this
@BarBaraPrz (47611)
• St. Catharines, Ontario
8 Feb 13
I bet the little guy felt like royalty coming home in a firetruck.
2 people like this
@pergammano (7682)
• Canada
8 Feb 13
WOW, just yesterday I was watching Nat.Geo...and the program "Frontier Forces" about the same thing that had happened in Minnesota!
I cannot for the life of me, know how you felt...but I do have a little idea!
I live very rurally, too! My next door neighbour drove the only School Bus! Because I have way more property than I, they parked the bus in my driveway.
I had gone to work at the Marina, we owned and left my EX to watch our 4 yr. old son...(and believe me it was the last time)...his head in the clouds (airline pilot) he DID NOT notice that our son was missing! When I arrived home from work, and asked him...where T.J. was..I was met with a blank look!
I elicited the help of ALL the nearest neighbours...as there was a gravel pit across the main road...and my previous property had been pasture land..and there were many dug wells...so scary!
This was all around 4 p.m. and on! NO luck! Panic stricken! (This was the day's before Cell phones)...I truly thought I would go crazy..and I think that may have been the beginning of the end!
6:30 p.m., the School Bus arrives with my son....on Board! Phew! The little tyke had wandered over to play in the bus and fell asleep on the very back seat out of view...and only discovered when the bus was half way up Island.
All's well that ends well...but your discussion just brought back all those memories, and the feeling of helplessness..you must have felt!
2 people like this
@pergammano (7682)
• Canada
8 Feb 13
Actually, reliving those moments from this discussion, I think that was when I finally started to see "the bloom was off the rose!"
I can just see your little man....how thrilled he must be!2 people like this
@Kashmeresmycat (6369)
• United States
8 Feb 13
Oh my gosh, I could imagine how frantic you were waiting for him to come home. I would have been a nervous wreck!
That had to be so cool to see and I bet your son talked about this for a long time. This is something he'll never forget, nor you.
No, my kids have never had an exciting ride like that one...it would be hard to beat, lol!
No, my kids have never had an exciting ride like that one...it would be hard to beat, lol!2 people like this
@katsmeow1213 (28716)
• United States
8 Feb 13
I can imagine his excitement! And your panic of course until he got home.
2 people like this
@KrauseHome (36447)
• United States
11 Feb 13
This would be exciting for your son, but I do not blame you for being worried, and hope the roads and weather have gotten better for you by now. I am sure this is something though that your son will remember for ever. I think the most exciting thing I can remember is getting a ride home from school one time from one of my teachers who was not too bad looking when I was in like 7th or 8th grade one time after school because I had missed the bus.
@GreenMoo (11833)
•
12 Feb 13
Thankfully we don't see much snow here, just two or three times a year. unfortunately it can block us ff pretty quick though. When we woke yesterday morning everything was white, but it turned to rain around lunchtime which I was very pleased about.
You were lucky to have a teacher who was willing to drive you home. I do worry that my eldest might one day miss the bus. There isn't another and it's just under an hour in the car.
1 person likes this
@wolfie34 (26771)
• United Kingdom
14 Feb 13
I am an adult and that sounds exciting, so imagine how much excitement your son had, and something to tell his friends! I always lived within walking distance of my school, ironically I still live in the same house as the one I went to school from. It is a 15 minute walk to school. I occasionally got a lift home and that in itself was exciting, the novelty of getting in a car and not having to walk!
@Hatley (163776)
• Garden Grove, California
5 Mar 13
hih greenmoo I went to school in Newell south Dakota and ours was also a volunteer fire department and they just did everything
to help even to taking cats down out of trees and a kid down from the water tower where he climbed all the way up then got scared and could not come down so they had a hoist thing and got him into the hoist and lowered him safely to the ground.,. I think when ee got homn je probably got a sp; anking for disobedience of 
the city rules
the city rules@Hatley (163776)
• Garden Grove, California
5 Mar 13
oh I f orgot to mentilon that Newell had 1300rsidetns two cats and one old maid honestly that was on the sign goling into Newell.We even had a s mall plane landing airport for small planes.Thbe state is mostly farms and ranches
and sme sheep ranches.to this day cattle rancers and sheep raisers do get into feuds.
and sme sheep ranches.to this day cattle rancers and sheep raisers do get into feuds.
@sarahruthbeth22 (43143)
• United States
11 Feb 13
Lucky kid! He got to ride with the firemen! It must have had so much fun!
1 person likes this
@bounce58 (17385)
• Canada
12 Feb 13
That must have been a terrible long, long night for you!
No, my kids have never been through an event like that, thank goodness. As a parent, I could understand how worried you must have been.
My kids' school is quite far, and they don't have any school buses. It's either I drop them off/pick them up, or a friend does it for me.
When I was very young, there was once a transport strike in the city. I couldn't get into any bus so I had to walk home, 6 kms! My parents were a little worried, but I was only late for a few hours.
@chicksdigscars (5483)
•
19 Feb 13
THAT.IS.AWESOME!
Your lucky son!!
I don't have kids so I can't really comment about my kids having an exciting ride anywhere lol but that is amazing!
1 person likes this
@Hatley (163776)
• Garden Grove, California
5 Mar 13
hi green Moo no my kids never had any exciting brides home from
school but I was raised In South Dakota where winters are mostly blizzards so I was about thirteen I think when one came out of the blue and school buses could not make it so our principal called a farmer friend and he had four horses and a huge sledge so all of us farm kids got on the sledge and laughed and giggled and kept one other warm till he got us to our individual farms. our farm was a one quarter mile to our house and I tried to tell him I could walk that but no he said they would like to see our large farm where Doctor Clark lived. My dad was the only doctor in town,. so he took me on that sledge all the way to my front door. Mom invited them all in for hot chocolate before he took the remaining kids home.It was a wild ride but we just had fun doing it.
