Lawrenceburg bus driver volunteers to help complete strangers Sunday

She volunteered to transport the occupants of bus fire

(LAWRENCEBURG, Ind.) – A Lawrenceburg Community School Corporation bus driver stepped up to volunteer on her off day to help complete strangers.

Amber Pickett heard the firetrucks go by her house as they were traveling to a bus fire on I-275 on Sunday afternoon.

She was listening to the scanner when she heard that there was a need for a bus driver. 

“I sent a text to Superintendent Karl Galey and said if they need help I can be there. He called dispatch and called me back and said they can use your help,” Pickett said. 

Pickett jumped in the bus and went to the crash scene with an escort from Lawrenceburg Police Officer Brian Potts.  

She was surprised to learn that the occupants were college basketball players with the IU Indy Men’s Basketball Team. 

“Before I got there, for all I knew it was a bus heading to the casino,” she said. 

Pickett recalls the driver of the bus being upset and feeling guilty about the situation. 

“I gave him a hug and said it wasn’t his fault. I said you did everything great and every one of these kids get to go home safely to their loved ones tonight because of you,” she said. 

There were 26 people who escaped the burnt bus and later boarded Pickett’s Lawrenceburg bus. 

She even took them to LaRosas’s in Greendale where one of the IU Indy basketball players paid for her drink as the team waited for a new charter. 

“The whole team was really great and for what they just went through, they were all nice and just a great group of kids,” she said. 

Pickett began driving a Lawrenceburg school bus nearly two years ago after her father passed away.

She was looking for a career change when she found an advertisement about bus drivers. 

It has become a career that she loves and she wasn't expecting any attention from her actions today.

Prior to driving a school bus, she spent 15 years as a member of Aurora EMS. 

Here are some photos from the bus fire she responded to: