Quick-thinking passenger averts bus disaster

NORRIDGE, Ill. (WLS) -- It was a high-speed disaster-in-the-making near the Illinois-Wisconsin border over the weekend, and it ended without a single serious injury.

Jill Bien was returning home to Norridge, Ill., from a Milwaukee casino on Saturday when, on I-94 near Kenosha, the bus veered into a guard rail as the driver collapsed.

"I'm yelling at him stop the bus!" Bein recalls. "And I realize we start going towards the wall again. I turn to yell at him like what are you doing? There was no one sitting there. So that's when I realized this bus is going by itself."

With the driver on the floor, Bein jumped behind the wheel and brought the bus safely to a halt. None of the 34 passengers on board was seriously hurt. Many of them praise Bein for her quick-thinking.

"She stepped on the brakes and got that bus over to the side, thank god!" said fellow passenger Marge Borkowski.

It's not clear what caused the 68-year-old driver to collapse. He was admitted to a Kenosha hospital. He has not been ticketed.