Schoolteacher Mary Ludwig still gets goose bumps remembering the first time she met bus driver Kevin McKay. The pair were setting off on a terrifying, five-hour journey with nearly two dozen elementary school students as the Camp fire engulfed Paradise, California, in 2018. 'That day I met a stranger and put my complete trust in that stranger and today we’re very close, lifelong friends,' Ludwig says.
Their story is told in the film The Lost Bus, directed by Paul Greengrass and now streaming on Apple TV+. Matthew McConaughey plays McKay while America Ferrera co-stars as Ludwig. Greengrass says in production notes: 'It’s a world far removed from Los Angeles, blue-collar, with its own culture and rhythm.'
Back then, McKay could feel the American dream slipping away. His divorce had led to a custody battle. He had recently lost his father to cancer and moved his mother, who had stage 4 melanoma, into his home. In April he had quit his job running a Walgreens pharmacy to put himself back through college and took a job as a bus driver to make ends meet.
One night in November he had to put down his pet dog. The next morning, his son Shaun was home sick with stomach flu. It was also that day that a faulty power line sparked the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history, claiming 85 lives and virtually burning Paradise off the map.
Ludwig knew something was wrong that morning. 'I headed out to the car and stopped in my driveway because I have asthma and I was physically reacting to what was going on but visually it didn’t make sense,' she says. At school, students were tearing into the classroom saying there were logs falling from the sky like embers.
McKay, who had been hoping to check on his mother and son, instinctively volunteered to evacuate the school. He picked up Ludwig and another teacher along with 22 students. 'I was a little bit terrified in the fact that I didn’t know him,' Ludwig confesses. 'All I could do was trust him.'
