Hickory, NC (WCNC) -- The son of a school bus driver killed while protecting students on an Alabama bus says his father "died for a purpose."
Police say Chuck Poland was shot while trying to prevent Jimmy Lee Dykes from kidnapping the students on a bus in Midland City.
"Everytime my dad got on a bus, it wasn't for transporting somebody else's kids, it was his kids. He took them as his own."
"Thank God if it did happen it happened to that bus because my dad, I believe, was strong enough to do what he needed to."
Dykes did take a five-year-old off the bus and held him hostage for nearly a week in an underground bunker.
The FBI rescued the boy in a mission that ended with Dykes dead.