ABBEVILLE, Ala. — A boy abducted from an South Alabama school bus 13 years ago and held hostage in a bunker for six days graduated from high school on Friday.
Ethan Turner walked the stage to receive his diploma from Abbeville High School, AL.com reported.
When he was 5 in 2013, the boy, then known as Ethan Gilman, was taken from a school bus in Dale County by 65-year-old Jimmy Lee Dykes, WTVY reported.
Dykes fatally shot the bus driver, Charles Albert Poland Jr., 66, who was credited with saving the lives of more than two dozen children, according to a 2013 news report by the Opelika-Auburn News.
Turner, who was sitting behind the bus driver when Dykes boarded the vehicle, passed out, according to the Montgomery Advertiser. Poland was shot when he stood between Dykes and the children.
Dykes, who originally demanded two hostages, scooped up the young boy and took him to an underground bunker on his property in rural Midland City. Law enforcement officers worked for nearly a week to free the child. Dykes was killed on the sixth day of the standoff by FBI agents who entered the bunker.
Turner turned 6 two days after his rescue.
“Ethan’s story captured the attention of the entire nation during one of the darkest and most difficult moments in Dale County’s history,” Dale County Sheriff Mason Bynum wrote in a Facebook post. “But through strength, faith, resilience, and the support of those who loved him, Ethan refused to let tragedy define his future.”
Now 18, Turner said he hopes people see him as more than a figure involved in a crime that once defined him, WTVY reported.
“I don’t want people to be like, ‘Oh, he’s this boy’ or this dude,” Turner told the television station. “I want them not to be scared to go on a bus or do that just because of what happened.”
The boy would be adopted by Nicci and Brandon Turner, WTVY reported. Retired Alabama Department of Human Resources worker Judy Walding said she helped connect Ethan with the Turners.
“I reached out to them and I said, ‘Could he come stay with y’all during the holidays?’” Walding told the television station. “And of course, they said yes … and he never left.”
Ethan Turner, who graduated with two of his siblings, said the graduation ceremony meant “a whole lot” to him.
“I’m just really blessed to have family and friends and all that stuff,” he told WTVY.
“It was very emotional for teachers and myself,” former Midland City Elementary Principal Phillip Parker told the television station. “But he adjusted. I don’t know of a kid that could have done any better to come back into a situation that he was in and just be treated normal.”
He found stability through art and hands-on work, and hobbies that included nature and forestry, according to the television station.
“I like nature -- forestry and all that stuff,” he said. “Just looking outside, basically.”
Turner said he plans to attend Wallace Community College in Dothan to study welding.
Nicci Turner said that she has told her children that trauma does not have to determine their future.
“What happens to you is not you. It doesn’t define you,” she told WTVY. “And you don’t have to be a victim. You can pick yourself up and keep going.”
“I know Mr. Chuck Poland and Sheriff Wally Olson are looking down smiling at their ‘little Ethan’ today!” Bynum wrote on Facebook.
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