This Hero Driver "Did What a Mom Would Do" When She Saved 20 Kids From a Burning School Bus

It's not an image any parent wants to see: a yellow school bus, engulfed in flames with black smoke billowing out of every window.

Thanks to one heroic bus driver, however, all 20 students on board that elementary school bus in Maryland walked away safely, injury-free.

Driver Reneita Smith noticed something was off when her Glenarden Woods Elementary School bus started making noises and the brake light indicator turned on. She smelled smoke and promptly secured the bus. Then, from "my side view mirror, I saw fire." She sprung to action.

"I got my babies, and I got off the bus," she told CNN, noting that she took each child off the bus one by one. "But because it just didn't sit right with me, I had to make sure every last body on that bus was accounted for. I ran back in. As I got back off, I got to the last step on the bus, and the bus went up in flames."

The cause of the fire is under investigation, but one thing is certain: these kids – and their parents – were lucky to have Reneita at the wheel.

"I didn't see other people's children, I saw my children," she said. "I'm a mom, so I just did what a mom would do, and I got my babies off the bus."