JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A quick-thinking Florida school bus driver rushed a wounded student to a nearby fire station Wednesday after the 17-year-old was shot in the chest while walking to the stop, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office.
Lt. Will Janes said a black vehicle approached Javon Mills as he was walking on Lane Avenue toward his bus stop around 6:15 a.m. and someone inside opened fire.
Police said Mills was able to get to his bus stop and was loaded onto the bus.
“The bus driver made a split-second decision to transport him to the fire station,” Janes said. “It was likely very important (that the driver did that). The immediate medical care that he got very likely saved his life.”
Janes said Javon who was critically injured, was taken from the fire station to a hospital, where he was taken to surgery.
"He's going to be OK," said John Mills, Javon's father. "He's recovering, but he is talking and everything. He is alert."
Duval County School Board member Scott Shine said the teen was shot in the chest.
Police did not have any description of the shooter.
"My son didn't have enemies," John Mills told Local TV station WJXT. "I talked with him and he said he has no beef with nobody."
Deputies questioned the other students who were on the bus Wednesday morning.
Shine said two students did not cooperate with officers' questions and tried to take an officer's Taser. One of those students was shocked with a Taser and taken to Baptist Hospital as a precaution, Shine said.
"I never, in a million years, would've thought my son (was) going to school and at a bus stop -- would be shot, and they meant to kill him. There wasn't a graze or none of that. They shot him right in his chest," John Mills said. "I'd like to thank the Lord Jesus Christ for saving my child and giving me another day with him."