Good Samaritans spring into action following Grandfield bus crash

GRANDFIELD, Okla. (KSWO) - What started as a normal day of checking cattle on the family farm, turned into so much more for Bobby Wittington.

”I saw a pillar of smoke, and as we got closer to it I could tell it was a vehicle accident, and we got closer you could see that a school bus was involved,” said Wittington.

That’s when Wittington saw the accident and the pickup engulfed in flames. Another Good Samaritan, Jeff Thornton, was already there.

“He already got the kids out of the school bus, and we made a decision to hook his pickup up and pull the school bus off the vehicle that was on fire because that was all we could do,” Wittington stated.

Wittington says the bus driver, James Jackson, was trapped and that pulling the bus from the fire was all they could do to help the situation.

”We started to check the kids to make sure they weren’t too seriously injured and waited for help to get there,” Wittington recalled. ”Those kids had a lot of guardian angels looking over them.”

Wittington, who spent 40 years in law enforcement, commended Jackson for how he handled the situation.

”He did a remarkable job protecting those kids,” Wittington said.

Not everyone survived the tragic accident, the driver of the pickup died of his injuries.

”The ones you can’t save, are the ones that bug you, you know that’s the ones that bother you,” Wittington explained.

Oklahoma Highway Patrol and Tillman County Sheriff Deputies on the scene commended Wittington and Thornton for their heroic actions, saying it would have been much worse had they not been there.