10-year-old hero, Nicholas Sierra, helped pull 26 children to safety after a school bus he was traveling on crashed into a pond. The kids ranged from ages six to 10, many of them kindergartners.

Sierra, from Odessa, Florida, acted without reservation after the large yellow school bus lost control and rolled over, finally coming to rest in a pond. Did we mention the pond was chock-full of 12-foot alligators?

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According to the Tampa Bay Times, Nicholas was one of the 27 kids on board the 21-year-old school bus when it veered off the road and crashed into a pond. Keeping ever so calm, and putting on a brave face, Nicholas immediately sprung into action. “Kids were crying and screaming so I grabbed a kindergartner’s arms and put them around my neck and brought her to land,” the fifth grade student recounted the scary incident to local reporters “And then I went back into the bus and grabbed two other kindergartners and also brought them to land.” h/t washingtonweeklynews

It’s not yet clear why the bus wound up on its side and in a pond full of gators, but Sierra told reporters that ““The bus was out of control and I looked at the brakes, and when he kept on stepping on them, they wouldn’t work.”

nicholas sierra school bus accident pond odessa

“He has a good heart and always wants to help people around him,” Deborah Sierra, the boy’s mother, told the Times, “I think we’re going to give him a homework pass for the night.”