The Tragic Road Before An N.J. School Bus Driver's Fatal Collapse

This 73-year-old New Jersey man's wife just died a week ago. He had diabetes that he appeared to suffer from until his final breath.

Until that very moment, bystanders fed him and tried to save his life while he was suffering a "medical episode," one that forced him to crash his school bus into a tree.

Seven kids were inside the bus. They were mostly OK. The school bus driver was not. The man died a short time later.

These are the tragic circumstances involving a New Jersey school bus driver, whom police have declined to identify, just as he collapsed while he was driving kids to school Wednesday, according to police and media reports.

Students said they did all they could to save the man - and he did all he could to save them - as he drifted off the West Windsor roadway and headed toward the tree.

Students such as Sanjana Marepally of West Windsor told WABC-TV that the accident could have been much worse.

"We could hear him breathing loudly," she told the station. "He definitely took his foot off the accelerator."

Read more: N.J. School Bus Driver Collapses While Driving Kids, Crashes, Dies

Indeed, the seven West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South students on board the bus tried to stop the school bus after the driver suffered the medical episode and before it hit a tree, according to police.

At 3:11 p.m., traffic and patrol units were dispatched to Zaitz Farm Road where they found a bus had struck a tree branch and then struck another tree, where it came to its final resting place off the roadway.

One student, 14, reported pain in her wrist/hand area but declined any medical attention at the scene. No other injuries were reported or observed, police said.

A student, Tanuj Redui, told News12 he knew something was wrong when the bus started drifting and he started hearing the rustle of the branches. He and other students tried to help the driver and called 911.

The students were able to untangle the driver’s seat belt and stop the bus, and some students tried to keep the driver calm, according to the reports. Raj Datta says his daughter was on the bus at the time and suffered a wrist injury.

“I came over into the bus I tried to help him up a little bit, free his hands and legs,” Datta told News12.

Datta told WABC-TV that he and other parents came over to help once they saw the man "all blue."

"So I fed him some sugar, hoping he'll revive from that," he told the station. The driver was alert and talking to the parents, one of whom told WABC that his wife had just died a week ago.

The driver died an hour and a half later when he was taken to University Medical Center at Princeton-Plainsboro, according to police.

All students were able to get off the bus through the emergency exit and waited until emergency services arrived, according to the reports.

"He did a very heroic job in saving these kids," Datta told reporters.

Patch file photo