Renita Smith is a single mother of two who loves her job working as a bus driver. In fact, the children that she drives to and from school every day, she calls them her babies. There’s nothing that Renita would not do for her students, even if it means risking her own life to save theirs.

Recently, Renita was going about her normal work day, dropping children off after school whens she noticed the brake light on the bus came on. She was a little worried about this, but she believed that she could make it to the fourth stop before pulling over and investigating it further.

Unfortunately, the issue ended up being more serious than Renita thought, and soon everyone on the bus could smell smoke.

“By the time I picked up the mic to call transportation, my bus was on fire,” she recalled.

Many bus drivers would have panicked in this situation, but not Renita. Thinking fast, Renita put her own life on the line to get every child off of the bus. Just to make sure no child was left behind, Renita got back on the bus one more time to do one final check even though it was completely engulfed in flames.

“Then I ran back into the bus because I needed to make sure that all of my babies were accounted for,” she explained.

The story of Renita’s bravery quickly went viral, and it eventually came to the attention of talk show host Ellen DeGeneres. When Ellen heard that Renita was living paycheck to paycheck, she knew she had to do something for her. Ellen invited Renita on the daytime show to give her the surprise of a lifetime!

Find out what the surprise was in the video below!