LOUISVILLE, Ky. — When George Nichols heard a JCPS bus had flipped Tuesday morning, sending students to the hospital with minor injuries, he was ecstatic.
He found joy in the detail. Students were sent to the hospital, they didn't die. The bus flipped, it didn't explode.
Thirty-four years ago this month, Dr. Nichols was searching through a school bus.
It carried 67 people on a church trip from Kings Island back home to Radcliff.
A drunk driver crashed head-on into the bus. The engine, then located at the front of the bus, exploded. 27 people died, 3 adults and 24 children.
"We spent two and a half days examining the bus," Dr. Nichols said. At the time, he was the Kentucky State Medical Examiner.
He described burnt bodies and parents asking to see their kids again. He would say, "pull out your wallet and look at a photo, that's how you want to remember them."
A few short months later, Dr. Nichols would go on to send his oldest son to school for the first time, in a school bus.
Instead of distrusting the essential service, he sought to improve it.
Dr. Nichols knew the explosion could have been prevented. He testified to congressional committees, state legislature, and juries. Eventually, regulations and manufacturers changed.
Gas tanks are no longer housed in the front of a school bus and additional emergency exits have been added.
The United State Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration now calls the school bus, "the safest vehicle on the road." Students on the bus are 70 times more likely to get to school safely.
So, when that JCPS bus flipped Tuesday morning, Dr. Nichols saw it as a success. "I was ecstatic to find out the thing didn't catch on fire," he said. "We won."
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