A Long Island mother is demanding answers after finding out that her six-year-old son was left alone on a school bus for nearly 30 minutes, according to CBS News. Her first-grade child didn’t come home at his usual time on June 17, and the reason for that was worrying.
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Mom Wants Answers After First-Grade Son Was Left Alone On School Bus
Luckily, Natalie Sellars’ son used his emergency cellphone to call her. “He goes, ‘Mom, I’m on a bus by myself, and the bus driver and all the kids are gone.’ I said ‘What?'” said Sellars.
The bus driver allegedly drove past the stop where his babysitter was waiting to pick him up. Once her son called, he was unattended on the bus at the end of the bus route.
“He put his video on, and said, ‘Look mommy.’ Thank God he knows how to do that, because me and his dad trained him,” Sellars continued. “All I see is the baseball field and I started to freak out … I blacked out. I started crying, and I called 911 right away.”
This Uniondale mother has yet to receive an apology from the bus driver or his company since the incident. School staff initially suggested the bus driver had gone home.
She eventually found her son still on board right outside the driver’s home. The bus driver claimed he had to use the bathroom, but the mother has doubts.
“How long does it take to use the bathroom?” Sellars wondered. “You don’t have any compassion. You left a kid on a bus. How many times have you done this?”
Son Traumatized By Buses After Incident
According to Newsday, her now seven-year-old son is afraid to use the bus. “At night, he comes into my bedroom and wants to sleep with me, which he’d stopped doing since he was 3,” said Sellars.
“And when he sees a bus, he goes, ‘Mommy, I don’t want to go on that bus.’ He’s too scared to get back on a bus. He’s worried they’ll leave him again.”
Executive Vice President of Guardian Bus Company, Corey Muirhead, has since revealed that they fired the driver. “We sincerely apologize,” said Muirhead. “We have a zero-tolerance policy for a child left behind. It shouldn’t happen. But the driver is no longer employed by us.”
Now, months later, Sellars has been denied a request for dash cam footage of the incident. Guardian claimed that the bus driver had failed to do a required bus check. This is despite the fact that he was not new to the job.
Uniondale Union Free School District Superintendent Monique Darrisaw-Akil said in a statement that the district isn’t allowed to talk about Sellars’ case in specifics.
“However, what we can say is that the district took immediate action to ensure the bus driver in question was removed from all future Uniondale School District bus routes,” said Darrisaw-Akil.
“Additionally, all district protocols and procedures were followed in terms of responding to the child’s and the family’s concerns and needs subsequent to the incident.”