Bus Driver Leaves 5-Year-Old on School Bus for Hours After Boy Fell Asleep
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11/16/2024 05:22 PM
The school bus driver in Kansas is no longer employed by the school district after the kindergartener was left on a bus for more than six hours on Oct. 28
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A school bus (stock image)The family of a Kansas kindergarten student has been left reeling after the boy was unknowingly left alone on a school bus for hours.
According to a report from local Kansas outlet KWCH, a 5-year-old boy in the Hoxie School District in northwestern Kansas was accidentally left on a bus for hours during the school day after he fell asleep during the ride to school.
The incident took place on the morning of Oct. 28, the outlet reported. The driver, who was unaware that the boy did not get off the bus, drove home after dropping off the other children at school. The boy, who has not been named publicly, slept for hours in the bus as it was parked in the driver's driveway.
Six hours after the 5-year-old first got on the bus, the driver discovered him still sitting in his seat, KWCH reported.
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"How could that happen?" the boy's grandmother, Leta Meitl, told KWCH on Thursday, Nov. 14. "You count three getting off the bus. You count three getting on the bus. It's not rocket science."
Meitl expressed to the outlet her concern for her grandson's safety and advocated for school bus drivers to be more conscientious.
"I cried. I just kept wondering what was going on in his little mind," she said, noting that she was relieved that the weather was mild and that it wasn't extremely cold or hot, which might have put her grandson in danger.
"It takes less than 10 seconds to walk to the back and [then] back to the front of the bus [to check for kids]," she added.
The Hoxie School District told KWCH that the bus driver is no longer an employee. The district did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for comment.
Hoxie police did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for information.
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This isn't the first time this year that a student was left behind on a school bus after the driver completed the morning route to school. In July, police in Rhode Island said that a 4-year-old boy was accidentally left in an abandoned minibus.
A superintendent in North Kingstown, R.I. said the student was "left unattended on a North Kingstown School Department bus after the driver and monitors completed their morning route."
A police report obtained by PEOPLE at the time stated that the child "did not come into the school, [and] Fishing Cove Elementary Staff marked [him] absent and believed he did not come to school."
The report added that the school bus driver and monitor drove from the elementary school to the transportation parking lot, at which time the child was still in the back of the bus.
Police said the boy was "able to exit the bus and was subsequently located by town employees at the Municipal Office Building a short distance away." The bus driver and safety monitors were fired, and no criminal charges came of the case.
