NEW HAVEN, Conn. — A 2011 Knoch High School graduate helped avert a highway disaster early Sunday morning.

Ben Lesniak, 21, a cadet at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, was traveling after midnight in a bus with the academy’s club hockey team on Interstate 95 when the driver became sick and began losing consciousness, causing the bus to swerve.

Lesniak described the situation as surreal.

“It was a crazy situation. It was one of those things you just never expect to happen,” he said.

A cadet asked the driver if he was OK, and initially took the wheel. However, the driver’s foot pressed down on the accelerator, causing the bus to speed up and swerve heavily.

Lesniak went up to help and took the wheel and attempted to bring the bus to a stop while the other cadet began to move the driver.

When Lesniak tried to sit in the driver’s seat, another teammate attempted to turn the cruise control off and find an emergency brake.

The bus was traveling about 70 mph at the time. It took about five minutes to stop the bus, and nobody was injured. Lesniak did not know how to operate the air brake that would put the bus in park, so he held down the brake pedal while waiting for a trained operator to assist.

Travis Fender, a medical corpsman who was traveling with the team, praised the actions of the cadets.

“I’m a firm believer that a good many of us would be dead,” Fender said.

The driver was conscious by the time he was loaded in an ambulance, but there was no word on his condition or what happened to cause him to lose consciousness.

About 20 cadets were in the bus. They were traveling back to the academy in New London, Conn., after a game at the Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, N.Y.

Although there was some initial nervousness, Lesniak said that he and other cadets got serious once they realized it was an emergency.

While Lesniak and a few others worked to help the driver and stop the bus, other cadets called emergency services, called the bus company and directed traffic around the bus while waiting for an ambulance.

“It was amazing to see the team work together,” Lesniak said.

Lesniak’s father, Larry Lesniak of Penn Township, said he and his wife were relieved that neither their son nor anyone else was injured.

He said his son tried to downplay the incident when they spoke to him, but after speaking with his hockey coaches and seeing news coverage, he realized it was much bigger.

“We’re immensely proud,” Larry Lesniak said.

He said his son and the other cadets handled the situation extremely well.

“It’s an amazing set of circumstances,” he said.

Lesniak and the other cadets involved were honored at an awards ceremony at noon Thursday at the academy. He and three others were awarded the Coast Guard Commendation Medal.

He said the ceremony was bigger than he thought it would be, and several high ranking officers attended.

“I definitely wasn’t expecting that,” Lesniak said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.