A 5-year-old child who was left on a Jones County School District bus after falling asleep made her way to a nearby business and is OK now, officials said.
The incident occurred just after 5:30 p.m. on Feb. 23, according to the report by Deputy Harrison Tew of the Jones County Sheriff’s Department. He was called to Eastern Fishing and Rental Tools on Moose Drive after the West Jones Elementary School student walked over there looking for someone.
The little girl had to get through or over the fence at the bus barn to get help. She reportedly told workers there that she had fallen asleep and awakened to find that the bus was parked and she was all alone, so the employees called the sheriff’s department. The county bus barn is on Moose Drive, next to Eastern.
“It’s a very unfortunate incident ... I’m just happy it was resolved and she wasn’t harmed in any way,” school district Superintendent Tommy Parker said. “There’s no excuse really.”
The regular driver of the girl’s bus was unable to do the afternoon route, so a secretary drove the bus instead, school district Assistant Transportation Director Jeremy Gentry told Tew, according to the report, and she didn’t notice the child still on the bus.
“It was a spur-of-the-moment thing,” Parker said of the last-second substitute, “but they’re all trained and they’re supposed to check the bus. That didn’t happen, and there’s no excuse.”
Gentry and a school security officer picked up the little girl at the business and brought her back to the bus barn, where her mother came and got her.
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