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Storytime? (Not running related) (Read 34 times)

FTYC


Faster Than Your Couch!

    Gather around the campfire, sizzle up those marshmallows, get the popcorn popping - here's a scary story!

     

    My kids ride the school bus, every day. They all are on the same bus, the 16-year-old highschooler, the 8-year old third grader, and the 6-year old first grader. Last year, the two younger ones loved riding the bus so much they were very disappointed when this did not continue over the summer.

     

    First day of school, everybody caught the bus, things went well, even though the first-grader fell asleep on the way home, and had to be dragged out of the bus by the other two.

    Second day of school, the third-grader was ill, so only the two other kids were on the bus. Things went well, and so they did on the third day of school.

    Fourth day of school, Friday, and the third-grader was still ill. Teenager had a high school football game after school, so she was not riding the bus home. The 6-year old was riding the bus on his own, which he had done several times last year riding home from kindergarten.

     

    So my husband and I were waiting at the bus stop in the afternoon for the bus to arrive. The 8-year old was with us, as he had been home that day, and the bus stop is just a few steps from our house.

    The bus arrived and left, and two kids got off the bus. Not our first-grader, though.

    So I assumed he had either fallen asleep on the bus again, or just missed his stop, and would get off at the next stop about a quarter mile up the street in our little development. We waited a few minutes, and our son did not come home. Maybe he was playing with friends up the street, or at the playground?

    I jumped in the car and drove up and down the lane, but could not spot him anywhere. No other kids around to ask.

     

    I went back home, and my husband called the school. Maybe he had missed the bus?

    No, the secretary said, she had personally seen him getting on the bus (the school is small, and all the staff know the children very well, and always make sure everyone gets onto his bus). Not to worry, she said, even if he had fallen asleep, the transportation office would make sure he came home safely.

    So I worried a little less.

     

    I had to go to the school anyway, to pick up some of the 8-year-old's things, so that they would not remain in the school over the extended weekend. When I arrived there, I called my husband, but our son still had not arrived home. The school secretary called the transportation office, who said the bus was out in another village, and could not be contacted. So we waited some more.

    After an errand, I received a call from my husband that finally, our 6-year-old had arrived home, but not necessarily in the expected manner. I immediately went home, to hear things first hand from our little one.

     

    So this is what had happened:

     

    He had fallen asleep on the bus. When he woke up, he found himself alone in the deserted bus, which was parked at the bus depot. The doors and windows were shut, but our son had watched the driver many times operate the door handle, and so he opened the door of the bus and got out.

    He did not know where he was, but started out walking to find his way home.

     

    The bus depot borders on the ramp of a US highway, where the "business" and "throughway" routes merge. No shoulder, fairly narrow, two-lane road, where cars tend to drive fast, with lots of local and long-haul heavy truck traffic. Nearby is a small neighborhood, and even though in our area there are no bad neighborhoods where you'd not want to walk even at night, this one is the most "doubtful" neighborhood in the town.

    If you walked to the deep end of this neighborhood, and through the backyards of the houses there, and crossed the little forested area down by the creek, then crossed the creek itself, you'd end up right in the yards behind the houses of our neighborhood.

    But (fortunately for his safety), our son did not recognize that.

     

    So our 6-year-old was walking along that highway ramp and road. A car stopped, and the driver asked him if he needed a ride. And, maybe age-appropriately unknowing in the heat of the moment, the kid accepts.

     

    Now this is where a guardian angel must have been watching. Turned out, the driver was a volunteer at our local fire station, his family was in his car, and he knew every street in our village. He asked our son where he lived, and the kid told him. So the fireman drove to our house and dropped our son off. It is not totally clear to me why he did not call police at that point, but it might just have been that he felt bringing our son home was the quickest and gentlest ending of this adventure.

     

    My husband was so worked up by the things that he did not grasp at first that the fireman was not the official from the transportation office who had brought our son home. So he just thanked him, and took our son into the house, where he then heard the whole story.

     

    All's well that ends well?

    I am not so sure about this.

    It is the job of the transportation office, and the bus driver, to make sure each kid arrives home, or at least at their bus stop, safely after school. In my opinion, it can be expected that, especially in the first week(s) of school, the very young children, like kindergartners and first- and second-graders, may fall asleep on the bus and miss their stop. It is the responsibility of the bus driver to keep these kids safe until their parents can take them into their care.

    So the transportation office must train and remind and supervise drivers to check their buses before they leave them parked at the depot for the day. It is also not practical that buses cannot be contacted along certain parts of their routes.

     

    If it had been an exceptionally hot or cold day, or if the bus had been locked, this story could have had a different ending. Same holds if the kid had walked out into the middle of the road right into traffic. Or if he had decided to take the shortcut through the wrong neighborhood, or across the creek. Or if the wrong car had stopped.

    There are many possibilities where this could have gone wrong.

     

    So I filed a report with police to follow up on that matter, so that it may never happen again.

    For now, I am just glad that this had a lucky ending, thanks to the powers above, and many guardian angels watching out for our son.

     

     

    Another smore, anyone?

    Run for fun.

    Daydreamer1


      Uh, hold up on that other s'more for a few minutes, I forgot to eat the one I was holding while reading that .

       

      Holy crap, that's kind of scary. I thought that all bus drivers were supposed to do a seat by seat check before leaving the bus at the end of the day!!!!

       

      Thankfully the little guy made it home OK. What did he have to say about the experience?

      moonlightrunner


        Wow....you should buy a lottery ticket because your luck is good, the stars aligned and your family had a guardian angel. So glad it turned out OK. You and your husband have strong healthy hearts because they got a workout with that! Nothing more frightening than a missing child.

        January , 2022 Yankee Springs Winter Challenge 25k

        muppy


          Holy cow! I'd be flipping out if that happened to my son! I'm glad everything worked out I can't imagine how you must of felt. Fling a police report is a good idea, it will force them to follow up on the bus driver that didn't do his job, and hopefully this won't happen again.

          FTYC


          Faster Than Your Couch!

            DS is recovering, but the adventure must have impressed him, too. He didn't sleep very well and woke up early, afraid he might wake up all alone in an unfamiliar surrounding again if he fell asleep.

             

            He is the kind of kid who so much wants to handle things just like the adults, or older kids, do, too, just he sometimes forgets he is only 6 years old. So he thinks he is doing something wrong if he doesn't succeed, when he just acts age appropriately. He is disappointed that he needed help getting home, thinking he should have been capable of handling the situation all by himself.  I'm working on convincing him it's ok to ask for help early on already, and that even adults ask for help when they are not familiar with a situation.

             

            He was upset about what had happened, and embarrassed, thinking he shouldn't have fallen asleep. Yes, but buddy, you're just 6, and it's the first week of school!

             

            When he went there again with DH last night, he showed him everything, and DH took some pictures to document the details, just in case the incident goes beyond just a police report and consequences imposed by both on and by the transportation office. I think it was good for DS to relive the situation and thus overcome the trauma.

             

            I am just not sure how to address the issue that he climbed into a strange car, other than reminding him that when he's lost, it's perfectly ok to ask someone to call 911 (which he would love - he's a boy and loves all kinds of action). Just he himself didn't feel lost, he convinced himself it's perfectly ok to handle the situation on his own.  And I don't want to scare him too much and bring up all the what-ifs of his mishap, but he needs to know that this was a real emergency. And, climbing into the car actually turned out well for him, so how do I explain this?

             

            When I picked up my daughter after the football game last night, she told me some more stories about the bus driver. He does not take his job too seriously, or stick to rules. Apparently, against strict advice from the transportation office, he dumps all kids off the bus at the high school bus bay, when he is supposed to keep the elementary and middle-school students inside the bus until their connecting bus has parked behind their first bus, about 10 minutes later, to take them to the other school. Now I'm imagining my 6-year old in the bus bay of the huge high school, amidst the morning bus traffic, unsupervised, for 10 minutes, firmly believing he has Mr. Incredible's superpowers of being able to stop a bus (metro in the movie) by jumping right in front of it and pushing against it  ...

            Run for fun.

            Sandy-2


              Wow !!!  That is scary.

               

              Agree that you did the right thing by filing a police report, they will have to follow-up and walk through the whole thing and fix the things that went wrong.  They should do that anyway, but with a police report out there they can't ignore it.

               

              I agree that the hard part is him getting into the car, but at least there was a whole family in the car so he probably felt at ease, but still...

               

              Anyway I'm so glad it worked out.

              2/17/24 - Forgotten Florida 100 Mile, Christmas, FL

              cookiemonster


              Connoisseur of Cookies

                School bus drivers have been fired for not checking their vehicles at the end of their run.  Please make sure the bus company knows about this, too.  If his actions as they've been described to you are, in fact, true (I'm not suggesting your kids made up any of this), then this guy needs either extensive remediation and closer supervision or he needs to not have a job where he's in charge of a bus full of kids.

                 

                Glad it all worked out with your son getting home safely.

                ***************************************************************************************

                 

                "C" is for cookie.  That's good enough for me.

                FTYC


                Faster Than Your Couch!

                  I will make sure that the bus company gets the memo as well!

                   

                  It was not that the driver could have missed our son when he was sleeping on the bus. His assigned seat is in the front row, that's where he loves to sit, and that's where he sat. And he was not a little child by himself, but he had his backpack, lunch box and sweater with him, too. Too many things to miss on accident. IF the driver checked the bus.

                  Run for fun.


                  Occasional Runner

                    My MIL has been a school bus driver for about 40 years and she flips out over stories like this. The driver has an obligation to check the bus before leaving it parked anywhere. Sounds like this dude needs to follow a different career path. Your DH should have a talk with him about that at the bus stop next week.

                    TrailProf


                    Le professeur de trail

                      I would be doing everything in my power to get that bus driver fired.  I don't say that often because everyone makes mistakes but that is more than careless and lazy.

                       

                      I'll tell you a really scary story (thankfully not about my kids): I think it was 2013 or maybe 2012 there was a young man (age 16 I think) who was developmentally delayed and living at one of our wonderful residential facilities we have in PA.  A staff member was driving a 15-passenger van back from an outing.  The young man had fallen asleep in the back seat.  The staff all let him sleep whenever they saw him fall asleep because if they tried to wake him he would become very angry and physically aggressive.  On this day, they forgot about him.  It was a summer day and needless to say he died in the back of that hot van.

                       

                      Glad to hear you son is ok.  Not sure how my boys would react.  We try to instill common sense and safety but they are boys--by their nature they are impulsive.  I cannot seem to get mine to stay still for a minute.  Their bus driver probably wishes they would fall asleep on the bus.

                      My favorite day of the week is RUNday