Moorestown Students Save Boy's Life on Bus

Moorestown’s blue-ribbon schools are its calling card and its students have a reputation for academic excellence.

But the school district recognized three high school boys Tuesday night, and it had nothing to do with their grades.

Dwuan Gandy, Donovan Jones and Austin Peters, were riding the bus together on their way to school a couple weeks ago when a fellow student sitting near them began having a seizure. They quickly sprang into action, ensuring the boy was as comfortable as possible, alerting the bus driver to the incident and explaining to paramedics exactly what had happened when they arrived.

Austin, a sophomore, said it was “scary at first” and that none of the other students on the bus seemed at first to notice what was happening with the boy and even after Austin and his friends intervened, “Everybody else was quiet, just watching, in shock,” he said.

“This is the first time I’ve ever seen anybody in a seizure, so I didn’t really know how to handle it at first,” said Dwuan, a junior. “I thought he was dancing, you know, moving around in his seat, and right off the bat I was like, ‘He’s not looking right.’ And then you could just see … the emotion that was coming out of him, like, ‘Help me, I’m in need.’”

When the student began seizing, he went rigid, the boys said, and lolled to one side. They noticed he appeared to be choking on his saliva, so they tried to hold him up at first. When another student, who knew something about the boy’s condition, said the boy would feel better if he laid down, Dwuan, Austin and Donovan helped lay him down and stayed with him until paramedics got there.

“They had the awareness of what was going on and what needed to be done, and had the personal strength to commit to it ... and sometimes that's very difficult for adolescents and teens to do,” said principal Drew Seibel. “According to the bus driver, the whole reason it went as well as it did is because of these boys.”  

Seibel shared the boys’ story with the audience at Tuesday’s board of education meeting and commended them for their heroism.

The boys’ parents expressed a tremendous amount of pride at their actions, but not surprise.

“I wasn’t surprised when I heard he did something like that,” said Dwuan’s father, Dwuan Gandy Sr. “He’s a compassionate kid … That’s the kind of gentleman that I know that he is.”

“I was surprised at how calm he was, how all three of them were,” said Dwuan’s mother, Michelle. “For something like that, the way they described it, it sounded so serious, I’m surprised that they just jumped in. Just amazed.”

Keith and Greta Peterson said similar things about Austin, that he’s “always helping people” (though never before in such a dramatic fashion).

Donovan’s mother, Courtney Knight, said her son has always possessed a sense of service, of wanting to do more. It’s something she’s tried to instill in him, so to see it manifest in such a heroic way, she said, “really overwhelms you … I was really just blessed by it. Because you hope that that’s what they’ll do. You hope that they’ll react that way.”

In the days since, the boys said they’ve seen the other student—who they only knew casually, having played a game of pick-up basketball just the day before the incident—in the hallways. Dwuan said he asked him how he was doing.

“I feel bad, 'cause he’s really embarrassed about the situation. So every time I see him he puts his head down,” said Dwuan. “I went over to him. I was like, ‘You all right?’ He said, ‘Yeah, I’m really embarrassed.’ I’m like, ‘Don’t be. It’s OK. As long as somebody was there to help you.’”

Before honoring the boys, the board recognized 25 students for achievements in the National Merit Scholarship Program. While taking nothing away from those students, Superintendent John Bach and Seibel said what Dwuan, Austin and Donovan did goes beyond the district’s core academic mission.

“These are the moments I really find absolutely incredible. They fill me with a great deal of pride,” said Seibel. “What these boys did actually speaks to the altruistic nature of our students … The life lessons that will carry through (from this) will change lives for many people.”