A man credited with saving a Megabus load of people from a man with a gun says he used football techniques to help tackle the gunman and take the weapon away from him.
"In order to get him off of me, I used some of our hand techniques, just like in football, and it actually worked," said Kenneth Smith, who is a semi-professional football player.
The bus was traveling from Chicago to Minneapolis overnight Tuesday when a passenger began to assault the bus driver and try to force her from the driver's seat, Smith said. Smith then approached the man and asked him to leave the driver alone and return to his seat.
Later, the man went into the bathroom on the bus and passengers heard a loud pop. It was gunfire. When the man exited the bathroom, Smith confronted him again. The man used vulgar language and threatened him, so Smith tackled him to the ground and choked him. That's when the gun fell to the floor.
This incident wasn't the first time that Smith has come to the rescue on the Mega Bus. Another time, he was riding a bus that caught fire and he helped put it out.
Smith has ridden the Megabus twice a month every month for the past nine years to visit his son in Minnesota. His son already called him "Superman," but now he'll have one more reason to use the nickname.
No one knows whether the gunman planned to use the weapon, but Smith's quick thinking and acting prevented a potentially worse situation from happening.
Local
"He could've had another gun, he could've shot somebody," Smith said. "We could've been on the news for something totally different, that's what I was thinking."
