Scroll down to the end of the article to watch a video posted by Jönköpings-Posten of the incident.

The bus, carrying around 50 passengers, was on the motorway 30 minutes outside of Jönköping in southern Sweden when the driver fainted with his foot on the gas pedal.

But a video which has gone viral in Sweden shows how two brave passengers manage to take control of the bus and get it to safely slow down to a halt amid panicked screams.

Niranjan Nithyanandam, from India, was one of them.

He tells The Local how he was listening to music on his phone when he noticed another passenger shifting out of the seat. He thought she was getting up to go to the toilet, but then heard her scream for help as the bus started hitting the rails on the side of the road.

"I got up immediately after, then tried to wake up the driver along with the lady, but the bus was going out of control, so she started to focus on the steering at that point," he says.

He tried to reach for the brakes, but wasn't able to.

"During the few minutes of chaos on the bus, there was a lot of screaming and I heard [the other passengers] shout 'brake' a lot, but we couldn't really do that at the moment," he says.

"The driver was a big guy blocking access – I couldn't even get his foot off the gas, so we were still going about 70 km/h. The steering wheel was very sensitive, especially from standing in our position, so we went too far to the left and broke through the median divider. I could see oncoming cars, and I was scared we would crash into them."

He and the other passenger, a woman in her 60s named in the Swedish media as Maria Hjelte (her surname coincidentally meaning "hero" in Swedish), together managed to steer the bus back into its own lane, but noticed that it lost speed when they hit the median barrier, so they deliberately continued to steer into it and steadily got the bus to slow down.

"At that point, the driver slowly regained consciousness. He braked fully and opened the door, and we got off the bus," says Nithyanandam, describing the relief when it stopped.

Both he and Hjelte have told Swedish media that they just acted on instinct, their minds going blank as they were trying their best to gain control of the careening vehicle.

"I was feeling scared that I didn't know the right things to do," he says. "I don't even have a driving licence. I looked back to see no one else helping and I really needed someone to tell me what to do. I am very glad that the other person was there helping in the end."

Nithyanandam, who is originally from the state of Tamil Nadu in southern India, came to Sweden for his studies back in August 2020, and is currently working as an engineer.

He has had a lot of attention from colleagues and media outlets in the past 48 hours.

"My friends and my coworkers all were in appreciation, glad that I was not injured in any way and relieved that the situation was miraculously good in its outcome," he says, adding that although everyone has been very supportive the attention is starting to feel overwhelming.

He says the danger he and the other passengers were in on the bus has not yet sunk in.

"I keep replaying the exact few minutes, how crazy and surreal it felt. I was analysing a bit later, trying to think if there was anything better I could have done, that I could have reacted sooner since I was on the aisle seat in the end. I still am a bit overwhelmed, especially with all the attention from the media, and people talking to me about it at work."

Police were alerted to the incident just before 2pm on Sunday, August 17th.

"It is an immense stroke of luck that this happened on a section of road with a median barrier. Otherwise, things could have gone very, very wrong," Mats Pettersson, a press spokesperson for the eastern policing region, told the Dagens Nyheter newspaper.

He praised the passengers for their actions.

"They showed an incredible presence of mind. They did a fantastic job. They managed to bring the bus to a stop, and if they hadn't succeeded… you don't even want to think about it. There were lots of children on the bus as well," he added.

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