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An Edmonton bus driver is being called a hero with nerves of steel for his role in last week’s police shooting of a gunman at a busy Clareview intersection.

A retired police sergeant, driver Ernie Russell’s training kicked in when he came face-to-face with a man armed with a rifle March 13.

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First, he stopped the bus, then, the second it was safe, he had his half-dozen passengers lie on the floor at the back of the bus, moments before the vehicle was struck by at least one bullet.

A bullet went through the driver’s seat, leaving a hole at chest height where Russell had just been sitting.

“A lot of people would have panicked,” Mark Tetterington, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union, Local 569, said Tuesday.

“He saw the danger, had everyone hit the deck. … He did everything absolutely perfect.”

Photo by Shaughn Butts / Postmedia

Russell is forbidden by Edmonton Transit to speak publicly about his actions because of the ongoing police investigation. Three unrelated sources confirmed the sequence of events with the Journal, but can’t be named because they are not authorized to speak with the media.

Russell was driving the bus north on 50 Street carrying about five passengers around 11:30 a.m. when he saw the gunman at 137 Avenue.