A four-year-old girl is at Mercy Hospital in Springfield, Missouri recovering tonight, after she was somehow able to unlatch the back door of the bus she was on, before tumbling onto the pavement below.
Ryan Ciampoli, a licensed EMT and volunteer firefighter with Crawford County, was driving behind the bus on Highway 65 in Harrison when the back door of the bus flung open. The child fell to the pavement and the bus continued to drive away.
Ciampoli said he couldn't believe what he was seeing, but jumped in to action to help her. He says she was unconscious at first, but began to wake up when he approached her.
He carried her off the road where they laid her on a truck bed in a nearby parking lot and got to work keeping her conscious and checking her vitals. Once the adrenaline kicked in, he said she began kicking and screaming for her mom.
The paramedics arrived in about 5 minutes and transported her to the hospital. She has a broken jaw and will need surgery to repair it. She is expected to make a full recovery.
