Hero driver saves all nine children on her school bus after getting them off minutes before it exploded in ball of flames

A New Orleans school bus driver is being hailed as a hero after helping students, some as young as toddlers, out of her vehicle moments before it exploded.

Kia Rousseve, who just started working for the school district in February, said she was making her fifth stop on a regular morning around 7 a.m. on March 13 when she noticed her bus was losing power in the Central City section of the city.

‘I saw the smoke and then a little girl came and told me the bus underneath was on fire. I took them off,” Rousseve, 28, said WVUE. The exact cause of the fire is still under investigation, but the driver believes the cause is a defective alternator.

The heroic driver went on to say that despite getting all her children away safely and having nothing to do with the fire, she was subjected to a drug test, which she passed.

Rousseve said she helped the children escape through the front door instead of the emergency exit.

‘I saw the smoke and then a little girl came and told me the bus underneath was on fire. I took them off,” Rousseve, 28, said in an interview

‘I turned off the bus and got out. When I got off the bus exploded. All I heard was boom, boom, boom. I thought, oh my God, the bus exploded,” Rousseve said

‘I turned off the bus and got out. When I got off the bus exploded. All I heard was boom, boom, boom. I thought, oh my God, the bus exploded,” Rousseve said.

In a separate interview with NOLA.com, Rousseve said: ‘If I had still been on that bus… I would have exploded with the bus.’

Rousseve thought of her own child as she saved the children. “I love saving the lives of other kids and saving my life,” she said.

Rousseve has been driving buses in New Orleans since 2021.

After the incident, Rousseve said she has trouble sleeping and is afraid to get behind the wheel of her bus again. “I’m really… not sleeping. There’s just a lot going on,” she told the website.

“Her ability to remain calm in the face of danger and ensure that no child is hurt is nothing short of heroic. It is a poignant reminder of the critical role bus drivers play in the lives of our children, who often go unnoticed until a moment of crisis thrusts them into the spotlight,” NOLA.com said in a statement about Rousseve shared on social media .

According to a study The Department of Transportation reports bus fires in the US every day, but few are as explosive as those involving Rousseve and her passengers.

A school bus was registered in March 2023 enveloped in flames in the BW Cooper section of town. While two months later, a tourist bus in the city also caught fire.