For Natalie Sellars, it was a phone call that plunged her into every parent's worst nightmare. On what should have been a normal afternoon, she dialed her 6-year-old son, Michael, for their daily after-school check-in. The words he said next stopped her cold.
"He told me, 'Mommy, the bus stopped and I'm on the bus by myself,'" Natalie recounted.
The terrifying incident began with a simple change in routine. As reported by Newsday, Michael’s after-school program had just ended for the year, meaning he was supposed to be dropped off directly at his bus stop for the first time. However, the driver let older children off at a different stop, and when Michael didn't disembark in the unfamiliar area, he was forgotten. The driver then proceeded to his own home, parking the school bus with the 6-year-old still sitting inside.
child safety, school bus, left on bus, Natalie Sellars, working mom, 911 call, parenting, Uniondale School District, emergency preparedness, child trauma youtu.be
For nearly half an hour, Michael was alone and scared. Thankfully, his parents had equipped him with a cellphone for emergencies and taught him how to use its features—a decision that proved to be critical.
"He put the phone on video, thank god he knows how to do that, me and his dad trained him," Natalie explained. As the video feed came through, she recognized a baseball field in the background, giving her a crucial clue to his location. The realization sent her into a spiral of fear. "I black out," she told CBS New York. "I started crying and I called 911 right away."
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Using the information from the call, Natalie was able to find her son still on the bus, which was parked outside the driver’s house. She was baffled as to how such an oversight could occur. "I don't get it. It was not like my son had fallen asleep or was lying down or anything. He was sitting up."
According to the report, the driver stated he had to use the bathroom. But for the Sellars family, the excuse did little to address the trauma inflicted on their son. Newsday reports that Michael is now in therapy to cope with the fear the incident instilled in him. "When he sees a bus, he goes, 'Mommy, I don't want to go on that bus,'" Natalie said. "He’s too scared to get back on a bus. He’s worried they’ll leave him again."
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In response, both the bus company and the school district took swift action. "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," said Corey Muirhead, executive vice president of Guardian Bus Company.
Monique Darrisaw-Akil, the Uniondale Union Free School District Superintendent, added, "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."
This article originally appeared earlier this year. It has been updated.
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