It was supposed to be a typical drive home after a pair of Robbinsville Elementary School students were picked up by their grandmother Monday.
Midway through the commute, words that terrified Virginia Banks came from the backseat.
“The car’s on fire, the car’s on fire!,” Banks wrote about the child’s screams, in a Facebook post around 4 p.m. Monday. “Smoke started spreading through the car and I got pulled over. The kids got out of the car really fast and I couldn’t see fire anywhere.”
The post continues to say one of the children noticed his backpack was smoking; as it turned out, his school-issued Chromebook was on fire. Banks said that Robbinsville High School teacher Colby White stopped to help, as well as an unidentified school-resource officer.
No one was injured in the incident, which Graham County Schools said in a Monday evening release was an “isolated and atypical event.”
“We are in the process of investigating it,” the statement said. “We will offer more information and recommendations once the investigation is complete.”