Autistic boy, 8, spends an hour locked inside school bus after being forgotten during drop-off
ADELAIDE, AUSTRALIA: A disabled young boy from Adelaide was left locked inside a school bus after being forgotten during drop-off, sparking an urgent review from the education department. Harry, an eight-year-old autistic boy who is non-verbal, was picked up from his house in the northern suburbs on Monday morning, March 27, and was supposed to be driven to Modbury Special School in the school's bus, but he never showed up.
Harry's mother Bec (who did not want her last name used) told 7NEWS that they got quite concerned when the family received a worrying message on the school's Seesaw app asking if their son was coming to class. The child was later found in the bus driveway, alone and trapped inside the vehicle. He was reportedly in the bus for an hour.
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Little Harry was stuck in the back of the bus
Harry's parents said that they weren't upset with the bus driver, but rather with the school staffers in charge of unbuckling his seatbelt each day. Another parent, who is familiar with the family, said that the litle boy was stuck in the back of the bus while another student was driven to a different school before the driver went home. On Wednesday afternoon, March 29, they called an urgent meeting with school officials and demanded assurances that a similar situation would never happen again.
'This incident should not have occurred'
The school and the Department for Education are both reviewing the case. The department reportedly said that it was "taking the matter extremely seriously." "This incident should not have occurred," Chief Executive Martin Westwell said, adding, "The department will take all action necessary to ensure it doesn’t happen again."
In a similar incident earlier this month, Braidon Morrison of Shepparton, Australia, assisted his three-year-old daughter, Alyza, in buckling up before waving her off on a daycare shuttle bus. That afternoon, Morrison received the unfortunate call that his daughter was left inside the daycare bus for five hours. "She had obviously been screaming for help [on the bus] but no-one could hear her," the child's mother, Skye Seadon, said, as per ABC News.