Monica Yant Kinney: The almost unsung hero of Bristol Pike

In the backseat of a cab last week, I toss Iqbal Hussain the question I ask all over the city:

Know anything I should be writing about?

Hussain, a taxi and limousine driver, keeps his hands on the wheel and smiles at me in the rear-view mirror.

"Well, this morning," he says, "a Bensalem crossing guard saved my daughters' lives."

Now that's a tip worth a tip.

Days later, I'm sitting in Theresa Robbins' dining room watching the 48-year-old wince as she shifts her swollen body, seeking relief that Percocet can't deliver.

"Miss Terry" to her young charges at the intersection of Bristol Pike and Poquessing Avenue, Robbins has no idea how long it will take to recover from putting her body between a 1995 Cadillac and Hussain's 11- and 7-year-old daughters.

All Robbins knows is that she'd do it again: "They're all my kids out there."

There's nothing lucrative or luxurious about being a crossing guard.

The best thing about the job is the family-friendly hours, which is why Robbins signed on 12 years ago when her daughter entered grade school. The worst is how drivers disrespect the uniform, the 30-second delay in their hurried suburban lives.

For a decade Robbins stood on busy Hulmeville Road, a one-woman irritant holding a stop sign.

"They give you the finger," Robbins laments. "They cuss."

The first time she was hit was in 1998. Downplaying the danger, Robbins describes it as being "tapped."

"I put my sign up and assumed the guy saw me. I'm wearing bright colors, after all. Next thing I know, he's hitting the back of my legs."

Outraged, the driver blamed her.

"He got out of his car and said, 'You're going to get killed doing this job!' Then he got back in and drove off."

Two years ago, Robbins transferred to "a safer spot" around the corner from her house. She wanted to walk to work, "get to know the kids in my neighborhood."

Each morning from 7:15 to 9, she shepherds 50 youngsters across Bristol Pike to buses headed for St. Ephrem and St. Charles Catholic Schools, plus Cornwells Elementary and Shafer Middle.

At noon, she's back for one child.

"My little Logan," Robbins beams, "my kindy-gartner."

From 3 to 4:15 p.m., Robbins oversees students' giddy trip home.

Seeing children twice a day for years, you get close.

On the morning of the accident, Robbins had just given her usual thumbs-up to Alizah and Aruba Iqbal when she noticed a Cadillac coming toward them.

The windshield was covered with fog or frost. The driver wasn't slowing down for the sisters, who were holding hands as they crossed the street.

"I had my stop sign up, but the driver wasn't stopping," Robbins recalls. "I started screaming and screaming."

But the car kept coming. "So I pushed the girls out of the way."

Alizah, 11, and Aruba, 7, stumbled onto the safety of the sidewalk, dazed and terrified by what happened next.

The Caddy smacked the guard so hard, she bounced onto the hood. Then Robbins rolled backward, landing face-down on the pavement.

"I'm lying there in the road freaking out," Robbins recalls. "All I could think of was, 'Where are my kids? Where are my kids? Were they hit, too?' "

Parents and other children who witnessed the accident rushed to Robbins, calling her a hero.

This time, the driver stopped. The local woman was given a citation for not clearing the Cadillac's windshield, explains Bensalem's public safety director, Fred Harran.

"It's not criminal," he says. "It's careless."

Miraculously, Robbins has no broken bones - which she attributes to wearing several layers of clothes and snowpants. Her face and head were protected by a tightly pulled hoodie and earmuffs.

Still, she politely declined my request to pose for a photo saying, "I can't even brush my hair."

Nearly a week later, Robbins' left arm is in a brace and sling. Raising her right arm sends pain piercing through her chest, back and neck.

She has no feeling in two toes on her right foot. Her knees are swollen from being smacked by the Caddy's bumper.

Harran, her boss, marvels at Robbins' quick thinking. "She risked her life for those children."

The night after the accident, Hussain and his family brought flowers and fruit to thank Robbins and reassure the girls that their guardian angel was alive.

"She's such a nice lady, so very protective," explains Hussain, a Pakistan native who's been in the United States 15 years. "Not just with my kids, but with all the kids."

For more proof, I spy handmade cards on Robbins' coffee table - including one on cotton-candy-colored construction paper:

"Get well Miss Terry, from your Bus Stop Buddies."

Signed, in marker with smiley faces, hearts and exclamation marks, Kathleen, Denise, Anthony, Gerry, Kyle, Rhianna, Angie, Leah, Shamus, Christian, Lisa, Tommy . . .