CTA Bus Crash A CTA bus crashed into at least 20 parked cars on Diversey Avenue near Kedzie Avenue, after apparently losing consciousness behind the wheel on Dec. 21, 2012. The bus also hit the wall of a laundromat before it came to a stop. (Credit: CBS) 
 
 CTA Bus Crash A CTA bus crashed into at least 20 parked cars on Diversey Avenue near Kedzie Avenue, after apparently losing consciousness behind the wheel on Dec. 21, 2012. The bus also hit the wall of a laundromat before it came to a stop. (Credit: CBS) 
 
 CTA Bus Crash A CTA bus crashed into at least 20 parked cars on Diversey Avenue near Kedzie Avenue, after apparently losing consciousness behind the wheel on Dec. 21, 2012. The bus also hit the wall of a laundromat before it came to a stop. (Credit: CBS) 
 
 CTA Bus Crash A CTA bus crashed into at least 20 parked cars on Diversey Avenue near Kedzie Avenue, after apparently losing consciousness behind the wheel on Dec. 21, 2012. The bus also hit the wall of a laundromat before it came to a stop. (Credit: CBS) 
 
 CTA Bus Crash A CTA bus crashed into at least 20 parked cars on Diversey Avenue near Kedzie Avenue, after apparently losing consciousness behind the wheel on Dec. 21, 2012. The bus also hit the wall of a laundromat before it came to a stop. (Credit: CBS) 
 
 CHICAGO (CBS) –Many people were counting their blessings Friday after a CTA bus plowed into parked cars and a laundry. 
 
 As CBS 2’s Mai Martinez reports, the CTA says the bus driver passed out at the wheel before the accident, which occurred before 9 a.m. in the 2800 block of North Kedzie Avenue. Cars ended up piled on top of cars like toys. 
 
 “We’ve never seen anything like this,” said Ariel Gonzalez of Red Line Towing, who estimated the damage at more than $250,000. 
 
 That was just the cars. A Laundromat also was damaged, its sign almost taken down. 
 
 Edwin Torres, who lives nearby, heard the crash and ran to his window. 
 
 “It was like chaos everywhere. All these cars were waiting for the lights, and then everybody was out checking to see if everybody was OK, if anybody got hurt,” he said. 
 
 Owners of the cars also rushed out to see what happened. Marie Williams was counting her blessings. 
 
 “I’m just more grateful for my life. A car you can always get back,” she said. 
 
 She and others say they were more concerned about the bus driver. 
 
 “They had him with oxygen on him,” Torres said. 
 
 According to the CTA, only the driver and one passenger on the bus were injured. The CTA says the driver was hospitalized in stable condition. 
 
 They didn’t immediately know the condition of the injured passenger. ||||| LAKE ELMO, Minn. (WCCO) — A 12-year-old’s quick thinking likely helped save a bus full of children when the driver blacked out. 
 
 When Rana Kraftson noticed her bus driver was unconscious, she ran to the front of the bus, and pressed her hand on the brake pedal. 
 
 WCCO-TV talked to the girl who humbly says she did what anyone would’ve done. 
 
 “Of course I realized it could have been a much more serious situation,” said Torry Kraftson, the 12-year-old’s father. 
 
 Like they do every Tuesday in the winter months, last week, nine seventh graders pulled out of the Oak-Land Junior High School parking lot to go Nordic ski practice. 
 
 “He started to shake, and then all of a sudden he fell like a brick off of his seat, and then I stood up and started screaming, ‘He fainted!’” Rana Kraftson said. 
 
 Rana Kraftson noticed they were heading straight for a snow bank. 
 
 “When Rana ran up there and she started screaming, I think everyone just kind of got this adrenaline rush and just like, ‘Oh my gosh, what’s happening?’” said Emma Anderson, 12. 
 
 Rana Kraftson said that’s when she had a quick moment of clarity — “That I had to stop the bus, or else we’re going to hit a tree,” she said. 
 
 She knew she had to get to the brake pedal. 
 
 “His leg was still in the area that the breaks are in, so I had to move his leg,” she said. 
 
 She first pushed the accelerator, and when the kids yelled to her to push the other pedal, the bus came to a stop. 
 
 Rana Kraftson then picked up the bus driver’s radio and asked for help, and soon after, faculty came to their aid. 
 
 Rana Kraftson’s friends and her father say they are proud of her for stopping what could’ve been a dangerous situation. 
 
 “She’s got a good head on her shoulders, and she gets a lot of that from her mom,” Torry Kraftson said. 
 
 The skiers said that the bus driver suffered a stroke, but has pretty much recovered, aside from a broken arm. 
 
 The seventh graders on the Nordic ski team say they recently sent him a Christmas card.
– Amazingly no one was killed when a Chicago bus driver passed out at the wheel yesterday and plowed into at least 20 cars and a laundromat, CBS Chicago reports. "Literally looked like a scene out of a movie," said a tow truck driver who estimated the damage at over $250,000. Residents rushed outside to witness the wreckage at the 2800 block of North Kedzie Avenue, where cars were piled on top of each other and a laundromat wall was damaged. "I’m just more grateful for my life," said the owner of a damaged car. "A car you can always get back." Only the driver and a bus passenger were reported injured, and both were hospitalized in fair-to-serious condition, DNAInfo reports; a medical emergency was said to cause the driver's blackout. Incredibly, it wasn't the only bus-gone-wild story this month: A 12-year-old girl in Lake Elmo, Minn., stopped a bus full of school kids by pressing her hand on the brake after the driver lost consciousness, reports CBS Minnesota.