The real hero who helped prevent mass casualties in Sunday’s metropolitan Tel Aviv (Bat Yam) bus bombing was a child who told the bus driver that’s someone had left a bag on the bus, one of the passengers told President Shimon Peres Monday.
The Jewish Press reported here that the bus driver, Michael Yoger, insisted he was not a hero.
President Peres met with Yoger to praise him for quick thinking by stopping the bus and evacuating passengers before the bomb exploded and later spoke with the passenger, David Papo, who identified the “bag” as a bomb.
“A child told the driver that someone had left a bag on the bus,” Papo told President Peres. “I don’t know why, but I decided to examine it because I didn’t understand how someone could leave such a big bag on the bus. I tried to lift the bag, but it was so heavy that it raised my suspicion further.
“When I opened the bag I saw what it was. When the explosion happened, we were in the road helping the police to stop passersby and the traffic. Only afterwards when I saw the hole in the bus did I understand the damage that could have been caused.”