A bus carrying Milwaukee School of Engineering's wrestling team burst into flames Saturday night.
The MSOE team was returning from a tournament in Itasca, Minnesota, when near Rice Lake, Wisconsin, they first heard a tire pop and then noticed a fire. "The maybe 20 seconds it took us to pull over, the flame was about as high as the window was at that time," assistant wrestling coach Sam Rathburn said.
The Barron County Sheriff's Department's initial investigation showed the fire started in the back of the bus possibly within the brake system.
Rathburn, 11 wrestlers, the head coach and the head coach's son evacuated, watched the fire grow on a bitter cold roadside in a remote part of Wisconsin, and then hitched a ride in an ambulance and SWAT vehicle to the sheriff's department.
"We played some card games. We played some games on our phone. We also had a little dinner there, as well," sophomore wrestler Noal Nieberle said.