Michael Marshall.Photo:Leo Cohen/MediaNews Group/Oakland Tribune via Getty

Mike Marshall, 15, center in leather jacket, leaves the Alameda County Superior Courthouse in Oakland, Calif. on November 2, 1977 after giving his testimony.

Leo Cohen/MediaNews Group/Oakland Tribune via Getty

​​On July 15, 1976, three men in their 20shijacked a busload of 26 school childrenon their way back from a swim excursion in Chowchilla, Calif.

The men, who were asking for $5 million in ransom, drove them around for 11 hours before forcing the driver, Ed Ray, and the children, ages 5 to 14, to climb through a hole in the ground into a moving van buried in a rock quarry in Livermore.

However, the children and the driver made amiraculous escape, thanks to the heroism of one of the child hostages - 14-year-old Michael Marshall.

Michael Marshall.CBS Mornings/YouTube

Mike Marshall- Chowchilla busnapping

CBS Mornings/YouTube

However, Marshall kept digging and pounding on the box until, eventually, they were all able to escape.

Marshall told CNNthat he was never able to tell reporters about the ordeal and his own role in the escape at the time because the school principal intervened.

“Then out of nowhere, Principal [LeRoy] Tatum stepped in and said, ‘Why don’t we just give them a break, boys. Let them go home, get some sleep,’” Marshall said. “And so we got in the car and left.”

The Dairyland Union School bus.UPI/Bettmann/Getty

The Dairyland Union School bus from which 26 elementary school children and their bus driver were kidnapped near Chowchilla, California, July 16th 1976. The empty bus, camouflaged with foliage, was found abandoned.

UPI/Bettmann/Getty

“It was my chance to tell the world what happened — getting out and everything,” he said. “And I didn’t do it; I let the grown-ups do it.”

The ordeal debilitated Marshall for years afterwards.

“Before the kidnapping, I could see so much light ahead of me — see my future,” he said. “But then after the kidnapping, I couldn’t see anything.”

Marshall recounted being “blackout drunk every single night” when he was around 19 or 20. “I just didn’t want to remember any more about the kidnapping,” he said. “I was drinking and using and all of that to the point where … I was living in insanity.”

Survivors Spoke Out to PEOPLE in 2015

Meanwhile, the identities of the threekidnappers— Frederick Newhall Woods IV, 24, and brothers James, 24, and 22-year-old Richard Schoenfeld — and their connection to the crime scene shocked the nation, and added a layer of malice to the infamous crime.

It was revealed that Woods was a descendant of a prominent California family and the Schoenfelds' father was a well-regarded Bay Area foot doctor. The reason behind the kidnapping: the men suffered losses on a real estate project.

Relatives of kidnapped and missing children.Sacramento Bee File Photo

Relatives of kidnapped and missing chiildren, keeping a vigil at the Chowchilla police station, hug each other and weep with joy at the announcement that the busload of children had just been located and rescued and that they were all safe

Sacramento Bee File Photo

The trio was sentenced to life in prison for the infamous kidnapping.

However, Richard Schoenfeld was released in 2012 and his brother James was released in 2015.

At the time, some of the victims spoke to PEOPLE about their efforts to keep the men behind bars.

“We fought at every hearing and thought our voices would make a difference, that being there meant something to the parole board, but it didn’t,” Lynda Carrejo-Labendeira, who was only 10 when she was kidnapped,told PEOPLE in 2015.

“Just two years ago at the last hearing, James, who designed the contraption where we were held, said he spent years designing a better one,” Carrejo-Labendeira said. “Does that sound like someone who is remorseful?”

Bill Parker welcomes home his daughter, Barbara Parker, 8, a Chowchilla kidnapping victim.

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Darla Neal, who was also 10 at the time, said she still had nightmares about having a gun pointed at her head. “This ordeal altered the course of our family’s life and trickled down into my children’s lives,” she said.

James Schoenfeld.California Department of Corrections via AP

This is a Jan. 12, 2012 photo released by the California Department of Corrections showing James Schoenfeld

California Department of Corrections via AP

Fredrick Woods.California Department of Corrections via AP

This is a Nov. 9, 2015, photo released by the California Department of Corrections, showing Fredrick Woods

Richard Schoenfeld.California Department of Corrections via AP

This is a June 12, 2012 photo released by the California Department of Corrections showing Richard Schoenfeld.

“I saw a man in a waiting room who looked just like one of the kidnappers and I went into a panic attack,” she said. “I’ll never know if they will be around, or I will run into them. It will never be over for us, and it’s important to remember what they did and how they impacted so many lives.”

“We were lucky to get out, otherwise I think we would have died in there,” kidnap victim Jodi Heffington-Medrano, who was 10 at the time, told PEOPLE in 2015. “It took almost two years of planning and they had a lot of opportunities to back out. The brothers spent their prison time sharing a cell. Now they will be back living with their mom.”

Woods was granted parole in 2022,ABC30reported.

Meanwhile, Marshall has more recently been given the credit for being a hero.

He met recently with Larry Park, one of his fellow survivors.

“I didn’t realize how much it would help me to understand and to actually hear one of the kids tell me that I saved their lives and that they were grateful,” Marshall said, per CNN. “Not very many people can relate.”

source: people.com