Mannford Bus Driver Saves Kindergartener's Life

Video shows the frantic moments when a Mannford school bus driver saved a kindergarten student.

The bus had just dropped off a student, so it wasn't moving.

At first the driver says she thought the little boy was goofing around, until his sister told her it was not a joke.

Cameron Jansson is singing about the school bus today.

“The wheels on the bus go ‘round and ‘round…”

He’s back to his normal, smiling 6-year-old self.

But last week...

“Wanna know what happened on the bus?” he said.

On the bus ride home from school, Cameron did something that could have ended his life.

He swallowed a coin.

“I put in my mouth, then it... it choked me,” he said.

A school bus camera recorded the whole thing.

You can see Cameron choking, then he grabs his throat and tries cough up the coin, but he couldn't get it out.

“Watching the video and watching his face, yes, I could tell that my son was very scared,” Robin Jansson said.

Cameron's mom says a calmness came over him when bus driver Ginger Maxville jumped up to save him.

She pulled him to her and gave him the Heimlich maneuver.

And quicker than it began... it was over. 

“The bus driver just pushed my belly three times and that quarter went out,” Cameron said.

Afterward, Ms. Ginger cleaned Cameron's face, told him never to do that again, then comforted him.

“Awe, thank the Lord you're OK,” she said.

She says what happened didn't really sink in until all the students were gone.

“My knees were then kind of shaky,” Ginger said. “I just kind of fell apart and just thanked God for helping me through it, and I'm just so glad that he is OK.”

And no one is more thankful than Cameron's mom.

“I really appreciate you being there,” she told Ginger.

And she also said there aren't enough hugs to truly show her appreciation to the woman who saved her son.

“She's an angel,” Robin Jansson said. “She just really is an angel in our eyes.”

In her nearly 17 years of being a teacher's aide and school bus driver -- last week was the first time Ms. Ginger ever saved a student.

Cameron calls her his hero and says he won't be swallowing anymore coins.