Buss Disaster Prevented

Quick-Thinking Bus Passenger Prevents Disaster

Driver passed out in the Austrian Alps

By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff

Traffic makes its way along a steep road in the Alps.   (AP Photo/David Azia)

(NEWSER) – A bus with 22 people on board was moments away from plunging 300 feet over a cliff after the driver passed out on a road in the Austrian Alps, authorities say. One of the passengers, a 65-year-old French tourist, managed to leap forward and apply the brake after the 76-year-old driver collapsed, leaving the bus headed for the cliff, the BBC reports. The vehicle crashed through a guardrail but came to a stop hanging partly over the edge. "We were a hair's breadth from catastrophe," an Austrian police spokesman says, per AFP. He says it was "incredible luck" that the French passenger, who'd been sitting near the driver, was able to stop the bus in time.