Mom got a call from her 6-year-old—what she saw behind him on the bus made her dial 911 instantly
Making sure that their child is safe can be a major concern for parents while they are at work. So when a mom named Natalie Sellars realized that her 6-year-old had been left alone on a bus, it felt like a nightmare. But because of previous training for emergencies and an observation from the mom, her son, Michael, could come back home safe shortly afterwards. However, the family was pretty shaken by the incident and demanded strong action, per Newsday.
Natalie shared that her son would attend an after-school program at California Avenue school. But the program had ended for the year in June, so the boy was supposed to come home from school directly on the bus. A babysitter would have picked him up from the designated spot on that day. Some other kids were going to get off at the spot as well. However, the driver dropped the older kids at some other stop and Michael didn't get off there as he didn't know the area. Instead of dropping the boy off at his spot, the bus driver went home with the bus and parked it outside, with Michael still there. The boy was all alone on the bus and scared. Thankfully, he had a cellphone for emergencies and Natalie could reach out to him after he didn't come back home.
"He told me, 'Mommy, the bus stopped and I'm on the bus by myself,'" Natalie recounted. She was stunned and simply couldn't believe what she was hearing. The boy was on the bus alone for nearly half an hour, per CBS New York. The mom was used to calling her son every day after school and didn't know that it would come in handy in such a way. "He put the phone on video, thank god he knows how to do that, me and his dad trained him." The mom could see a baseball field at the location and recognized the place. She was in complete panic. "I blacked out. I started crying and I called 911 right away." The woman could find her son in the bus outside the bus driver's house eventually.
"I don't get it. It was not like my son had fallen asleep or was lying down or anything. He was sitting up." The driver pointed out that he had to use the bathroom. But the mom was surprised about how long the child had been left alone and asked for a formal apology. The kid had refused to take the bus after the incident and was getting therapy because of the effect that day of being left behind had on him, per Newsday. "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."
The bus company issued an apology to the family. "We sincerely apologize. We have a zero-tolerance policy for a child left behind. It shouldn't happen. But the driver is no longer employed by us," Corey Muirhead, executive vice president of Guardian Bus Company, which previously employed the driver in question, responded. "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," Monique Darrisaw-Akil, Uniondale Union Free School District Superintendent, went on. The boy didn't suffer from any physical injuries.