Look around — the world can surprise you

It pays to pay attention — just ask seventh grader Dillon Reeves. Unlike most kids in his hometown of Warren, Mich., 13-year-old Dillon doesn’t have a cellphone. His parents don’t allow one.

As a result, when riding on the bus to and from school, Dillon isn’t buried, face down in a screen. He’s paying attention.

And on a recent afternoon in late April, Dillon’s watchfulness prevented a tragedy. Dillon saw when his bus driver slumped over, her consciousness lost. The seventh grader prevented the bus from veering into oncoming traffic by grabbing the wheel, maneuvering it out traffic and pressing the brake.

Dillon and 66 other students were being driven home from Carter Middle School on April 26 when the driver, whose name has not been released, became lightheaded.

Over the bus radio, she told dispatch: “I’m feeling really dizzy. I might have to pull over.”

She then began to lose consciousness, with video footage of the incident showing her hands appearing to drop from the steering wheel.

Just seconds after, Dillon came to the front of the bus from about five rows back. He grabbed the wheel and pressed the brake, stopping the bus as his fellow students screamed around him. “Someone called 911,” Dillon yelled.

Two passersby came to help the bus driver and get the kids off the bus.

It isn’t the first time Dillon had his hands on a steering wheel. His father, Steve, told reporters Dillon has driven a golf cart before and has practiced driving with his dad for a few years.

“He could probably drive one of the cars out of here and be okay,” Reeves said during the news conference. “I promise you that.”

What’s more, Dillon has watched his bus driver do her job every day. After all, he wasn’t glued to an electronic device. He was looking out the window, observing how the driver handled the bus and otherwise being in the moment.

He probably even had the occasional opportunity to chat with one or two of the other kids on the bus who also weren’t looking down at their phones. One casualty of our electronic addiction, after all, is the encounters we have with other people in the real world — the casual conversations, the exchange of stories, the connections that help us make friends and feel a part of the larger world.

It’s a reminder that as alluring — as addictive — as our cellphones and tablets can be, remaining in real life has its moments. In this case, preventing the bus from crashing into traffic.

“I just knew what to do at that moment,” he said. “The bus was swerving off the road.”

As for a reward for the heroic teen, he was given the key to his city, Warren, and presented a certificate by the school board. He won’t be getting a cellphone anytime soon, however.

The near crash, his dad said, “is a very powerful lesson, maybe a ‘change the world’ kind of lesson.”