If the average high school student saw their school bus broken down on the side of the road, they might well just drive past, or even point and laugh. But Gavin Natti, a junior at Essex North Shore Agricultural and Technical School in Danvers, thought he should stop to help. And not just to call the police or protect the bus from being hit, but instead to actually fix the bus by replacing its serpentine belt himself.
According to WBZ-TV, the bus Natti stopped to help turned out not to just be a bus that belonged to his district, but the very bus he regularly rode to school. His bus driver was understandably surprised to see one of his regular riders pull up and offer to help. Natti, who was in the school’s automotive program, told the driver he thought he could fix the problem. The driver, who had already radioed the school district’s head bus mechanic, radioed back to tell the district that the student wanted a chance to fix the issue.
“My dispatch told me about the student on scene and she was pretty excited for him to give it a try. So I said, ‘Alright, I’ll give him a little bit.’”
Natti noted that the bus was overheating and quickly determined that a frayed serpentine belt was to blame for the issue. “We lifted up the hood and I saw that serpentine belt that runs the water pump, it runs the fan, everything to make that bus run and stay running was basically torn in half,” Natti told WBZ. Natti tried to find a replacement part but was unable to find the proper belt from a local store, so the district’s mechanic Jay Weaver brought him a belt to finish the job.
The next day Natti rode that very bus to school to find a proud automotive teacher in Brooks Clarke. “We teach everything from brakes, suspension, to check engine lights. The education the students receive here allows them to go directly out into the workforce. Gavin exemplifies what it means to be a model student and a good citizen.”
Natti told WBZ that he hopes to start his own automotive business when he graduates, so that he can help as many people as possible.
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