CLEVELAND -- Quick thinking and an exit strategy helped more than two dozen children escape from an Ohio school bus that started rolling downhill while its driver was in the bathroom Monday.

The bus driver had stopped at a gas station to use the bathroom while the children, students at Arts Academy of West Cleveland, waited on the bus, WEWS-TV in Cleveland reported.

Authorities in Cleveland said 15 children were treated for mostly minor injuries after jumping from a bus that crashed into a bridge support pillar after rolling away from a gas station.



The gas station manager said he saw the bus rolling and banged on the restroom to alert the driver.

Then he and another employee chased the bus down the hill.

A fire department spokesman said the bus was carrying 27 students.

The spokesman said a boy jumped behind the wheel and steered the bus into a pillar to stop it from going farther down the hill.

The boy is being called a hero by officials, the television station reported. His parents picked him up at the scene and he went home.