This Is Not My Stop

An MTA driver suffered a heart attack while driving her express bus west on Linden Boulevard, sending the vehicle careering onto the sidewalk and crashing into trees, poles and a church and schools marquee, finally coming to rest, ironically enough, at a Q4 line private company bus stop.
The 48-year-old female driver was unconscious when police arrived at the accident and had to be cut from her seat. They were able to resuscitate her with CPR and took her to Franklin General. Police did not give the drivers name.
"It scared me!" said Dr. Lewis Johnson, a witness to the accident. "When your 70-years-old, you get afraid pretty quick."
His wife, Gail Johnson, is principal of New Greater Bethel Churchs elementary school, whose marquee was hit and badly damaged by the out-of-control bus. Dr. Johnson said he was standing in front of his wifes school and was merely feets away when the bus veered onto the sidewalk at approximately 6:40 a.m. Though he was looking in the other direction, he heard the bus roar past him and slam into the marquees facade and then fell two sidewalk trees and a metal electrical pole, before stopping.
"I thought it was a bomb," Johnson said, describing the sound of the bus impact.
Moments earlier, Johnson had been sweeping the area of the bus deadly path. "If I had still been sweeping paper, I would have been hit," he said.
He and another man, sitting in an idle car in front of the bus stop, were the only witnesses to the accident. The man in the car called police on his cellphone.
There were no passengers on the bus at the time, and no pedestrians were hurt.
Dr. John Boyd, the pastor of New Greater Bethel Church said school was cancelled due to the accident. Some parents were annoyed because they had no place to bring their kids.
According to the pastor, the marquee, formerly part of a theatre, has been around for 50 years. He said it would cost more than $100,000 to erect a similar one today. Shards of the marquee, which overhangs the sidewalk and displays the churchs name, lay on the ground. The Buildings Department was inspecting the marquee to see if it were sturdy enough to stay up. The Parks Department removed the two trees uprooted in the accident, while Con Edison was called to fix a downed electrical wire.
A similar incident where an operator suffered a medical attack and lost control of a bus took place this past April. In that incident, driver Kenneth Criss went into diabetic shock while operating a Green Lines bus in South Ozone Park, ramming at least 15 parked cars and sending nine people to the hospital.