El Paso man who dies of heart attack on I-10 held as hero

i-10 tonight near downtown el paso. you can see traffic is once again flowing smoothly in both directions. but eastbound traffic was backed up from dallas to executive until just before noon. our good morning el paso crew was on top of the backup since it began just before seven o’clock. that’s when a bus crashed into the median near the dallas exit. no one really expected the entire freeway to be shut down for hours. tonight, we know why it was closed for so long… and why a much bigger tragedy on i-10 this morning was avoided. reporter darren hunt is live with details you’ll get only on abc-seven… estela, somehow, while having that heart attack this morning … 74-year-old bus driver benjamin galaviz-gomez got his bus off the freeway … and away from other drivers who could have been injured or killed when that bus came to a sudden halt. “this gentleman had worked fo the company some years back and then he came back … he started in april of this year and unfortunately this happened to him and our condolences to the family.” former county commissioner luis sarina is now a consultant for los paisanos autobuses … an el paso company that takes customers, mostly from mexico, to seven different states. “the bus was empty he was the only one on the bus at that time.” sarinana sai 74-year-old driver benjamin galaviz-gomez, who had recently undergone a physical, was returning monday morning from dallas. minutes after dropping a load of passengers and a co-driver in downtown el paso, he apparently suffered a heart attack on i-10 while returning his bus to the company garage, located near cielo vista mall. “as he was i guess trying t control the steering wheel and going through the heart attack he was able to manage to pull that bus to the side.” “it sounds like he did a really good thing this morning because he got that bus off the freeway … if he had left that bus on the freeway with what he was going through, that could have caused a terrible accident, but he got that bus off the freeway, sounds like he was a pretty caring guy.” “yes sir.” this man, who d not want to be identified, told me he considered galaviz-gomez his grandfather. “clearly he got that bus off th freeway and didn’t get anybody else hurt this morning and that’s a good thing.” “that’s definitely a good thing that even until the last moment he was able to stop, pull aside.” as for why it took four ghours to clear the wreck and open the freeway? sarina says crews were waitign for the medical examiner. estela.