Courtesy photo
Bus driver Jonathan Harvey was awarded the Civilian Medal of Valor by the Nevada Highway Patrol after preventing an assailant to harm passengers. He was stabbed multiple times.
Thursday, March 1, 2018 | 3:58 p.m.
A bus driver, who last year was stabbed twice in the chest and once in the thigh while confronting an unruly passenger, on Wednesday was awarded the highest civilian honor given by the Nevada Highway Patrol.
Jonathan Harvey’s “selfless actions thwarted the assailants attempt to harm other passengers and ultimately prevented serious injury or death to passengers,” NHP said in a news release announcing he received the Civilian Medal of Valor.
The incident unfolded Sept. 22 on Interstate 15 near Sloan, just south of Las Vegas.
The bus was heading toward Las Vegas when the passenger, Armando Juarez, 32, left his seat and refused to sit down, prompting Harvey to pull over and call 911.
The confrontation and the stabbing were caught on a dispatch recording. An inflamed Juarez began threatening Harvey, telling him to shut the door.
After a commotion, Harvey comes back on the phone, saying that he’d been stabbed, but had been able to boot Juarez off the bus and shut the vehicle’s door, while also describing Juarez’s movements on the highway.
Juarez, who ran across the highway, took his shirt off and tried punching passing vehicles, was arrested by troopers a few minutes later. A moderately-sized blade and a detached handle used in the stabbing were later found.
Officials at the time described Harvey’s injuries as serious, but survivable.
Juarez’s attempted murder and battery case remains tied up in the court system, and authorities are trying to determine if he’s mentally competent to face the charges, records show. He’s being held at the Clark County Detention Center, jail logs show.
