Anita Harper was with her "family" when it happened. The oncoming vehicle swerved across two lanes of traffic towards her and the busload of Australian schoolchildren in her care.
Ms Harper yanked the steering wheel left and crashed her bus into a rock wall on Heathcote Rd, at Lucas Heights, in Sydney's south
As the busload of screaming schoolchildren looked out the window and realised the enormity of the incident, the protective instincts of Ms Harper, who does not have children of her own, kicked in. Covered in blood from a cut to her head from a flying coin-box, and with a broken ankle, Ms Harper, 67, rescued her kids.
She passed each through a window as they cried in terror. All 37 of them.
The male driver and female passenger of the silver sedan that ploughed head-on into the bus just before 8am yesterday died, the driver at the scene and the passenger in hospital.
But witnesses said the toll could have been more if not for Ms Harper's quick thinking behind the wheel. If Ms Harper had turned to the right instead of the left, the Veolia school bus could have crashed through a barrier and plunged into what locals know as Dead Man's Gully.
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