Sylvia Uriegas transported children who were wounded inside Robb Elementary School to the hospital. The terror of that day still haunts her.
Sign up for The BriefWhen Uvalde school bus driver Sylvia Uriegas got the call on May 24 to report to Robb Elementary, she had no idea about the horror she was approaching.
Her normal path to the building was blocked, so Uriegas backed up her bus and found another route. The two other school buses followed. Another driver opened her door and asked a bystander what was happening. Only then did they learn that there was an active shooter inside Robb. But when she ran into some of the family members of slain 9-year-old Jackie Cazares, they urged her to tell the story from the driver’s seat; the full scope of all that had gone wrong, of the mishandling and lack of preparedness, needed to be made public, they said.
Lines of sobbing children headed for the other buses to be taken to a reunification center, but officers approached Uriegas’ bus with a wounded student and told her more were on the way. The officer asked if she had any medical supplies. Later, Uriegas scoffed at the memory of handing over what she called her “Mickey Mouse” first aid kit with little more than Band-Aids inside.
“Our subconscious will take over in an emergency,” he said. “Drivers need a different training than teachers. Your response inside of a school building is drastically different than the response on a moving vehicle moving down the highway.” After the hospital, Uriegas dropped off the bus at the district depot. It’s usually the drivers’ job to clean their own buses, but when the crew saw the blood all over the inside, they told her to stand down and said they would handle it. She was grateful but not ready to call it a day. She took another bus and returned to Robb, just in case.
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