Kriti Mehrotra
Apple TV+’s ‘The Lost Bus’ chronicles the real story of how 22 young lives were saved during the 2018 Camp Fire in California, thanks to the efforts of a few good Samaritans. It follows school bus driver Kevin McKay and teacher Mary Ludwig as they brave an inferno to get the elementary school students to safety/their parents. However, it’s imperative to note that in reality, there was another educator named Abigail “Abbie” Gerspacher-Davis on board with them, but her fictional counterpart is not in the film, reportedly because Abbie chose not to participate.
Abbie Davis Was a Relatively New Teacher When Her World Turned Upside Down
A proud native of Butte County, California, Abigail “Abbie” Gerspacher-Davis reportedly knew from an early age that she wanted to pursue a nontraditional career path. She had developed an interest in the arts – acting, dancing, and singing – at a young age. Still, she also developed a passion for other topics, including the sciences and the educational field. Therefore, upon graduating from high school, she enrolled at Butte College in 2006 to pursue an Associate’s degree in Liberal Arts & Sciences, but later transferred to California State University, Chico in 2011. Abbie graduated from university with a Bachelor’s in Liberal Arts & Sciences in 2013, following which she took some time to kickstart her career, reportedly owing to personal issues.
In January 2014, she landed her first job as a Cash Management Implementation Administrator at Tri Counties Bank, where she served until September 2016 before evolving into an educator. Her first role in this standing was as a student-teacher at her Chico alma mater from January 2017 to December 2017, and then she moved on to the Yuba City Unified School District. In 2018, she exited and joined the Paradise Unified School District as a kindergarten teacher for the local Ponderosa Elementary School. Little did she know that within months, she would find herself in the middle of what ended up being the state’s deadliest and most destructive wildfire. However, she held back her fear of losing her life and her desperate tears throughout the ordeal because she was surrounded by 22 young students who were looking up to her for comfort.
Abbie Davis Worked Tirelessly Even When She Was Terrified
It was after school had already started on the morning of November 8, 2018, when Paradise, California, was issued an evacuation notice because a wildfire had started spreading quickly. The teachers at Ponderosa Elementary School thus started contacting the students’ loved ones to pick them up, but 22 young kids’ parents indicated they would not be able to make it. Therefore, the school requested a bus to transport them to a safe location, resulting in Kevin McKay of bus #963 responding and onboarding the kids, Abbie, as well as teacher Mary Ludwig.
While Kevin faced traffic on smoke-encompassed roads and the responsibility of transporting all the lives on board his bus to safety, the two teachers worked tirelessly to comfort the kids. They actually developed an unspoken pattern of sorts, taking turns doing roll calls to distract them, walking up and down the aisle to see if anyone needed special attention, and communicating with Kevin to ensure everything went smoothly. Abbie was admittedly terrified at every step of the way, but her fear of losing her life was worse when they faced a collision at one point and were surrounded by fire at another. Nevertheless, 29-year-old Abbie did what was required of her, including pacing in the aisle and calling out spot fires upon the driver’s request, so that he knew when to be extra careful.
According to Kevin’s account, Abbie didn’t want to scare the children, so she devised a subtle way to communicate with him about such blazes without using words. That’s when he learned to read the arc of her eyebrows and the tilt of her head. As for Abbie, she has consistently asserted that their work was a team effort because Mary also kept her calm, whereas the bus driver didn’t hesitate to take the shirt off his back when the kids started getting affected by the smoke. He was the one who instructed them to tear it into 25 pieces and douse it in water so that the fabric could act as a filter and help them breathe better. In the end, it took them 5 hours to cross 30 miles and reach safety, where all 22 students were reunited with their parents before the adults fell into the arms of their loved ones.
Abbie Davis Currently Prefers to Lead a Quiet Life Away From the Limelight
While it’s true that Abbie gave several interviews in the aftermath of the incident, many with Mary and Kevin, she essentially retreated from the spotlight sometime in 2019. However, it was after the American Red Cross Society honored the trio, as well as a local nurse named Allyn Pierce, with the title of Heroes of the 2018 California Wildfires. According to Abbie’s own accounts, another point of concern during the ordeal was her fiancé, Matt Gerspacher, who stubbornly refused to leave Paradise without her before they lost contact. The then-29-year-old had reportedly already lost a fiancé in a tragic riverboat accident a few years prior, so she did not want her second chance at love, marriage, and a happy family to put himself in danger for her sake.
Thankfully, though, when Abbie reached the evacuation spot in Chico, California, Matt was there – he had made it out safe and sound. As per Kevin, Matt was filled with such gratitude that when he hugged him as a thank you, he “damned near lifted me off the ground.” The love this couple shared was evident to everyone that day, so it’s no surprise that we’re happy to report that Abbie and Matt have since tied the knot and settled into blissful matrimony. Unfortunately, since she prefers to keep her life out of the limelight these days, not much information regarding their recent personal experiences is available as of writing. Yet, from what we can tell, it appears as if Abbie is still a proud teacher in the Paradise Unified School District.
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