Pre-K student left alone in parked bus

A 4-year-old pre-Kindergarten student was mistakenly left alone on a school bus in Eastpoint for about four hours March 12 until an alert employee of a nearby car repair shop heard him crying for help.

According to the detail call sheet from the sheriff's office, Sgt. Tim Register was dispatched to C & S Service Center, 231 U.S. 98, at 11:39 a.m. after Lt. Bobby Shiver, who was off-duty at the time, notified the sheriff's office.

Shiver had been called by owner Charlie Nichols after his son, Clay, who works at C & S, discovered the boy "screaming and crying from the area of the school bus," read the call sheet.

Clay Nichols told police he walked over to the bus, parked behind C & S, and "saw a kid through the bus window."

After opening the door and bringing out the boy, who was "very sweaty and crying," Nichols took the boy inside and gave him something to drink.

Register transported the boy to the former Brown Elementary School, and advised principal Kay Cadwallader what had happened. She then called the boy's mother, Amanda Richburg, of Lanark Village, and told her what happened. The boy was fed lunch.

"I put him on the bus at 6:55 a.m. I got a call from the schoolhouse at 12:30 p.m. and they said (he) was found on the bus," said Richburg.

Transportation Supervisor Robert Coursey also was notified and he informed Superintendent Nina Marks. The parents, Richburg and Sammy Kilpatrick, Jr., arrived at the school and were briefed on the incident by school officials, Register wrote.

Marks said the bus driver, Judy Pate, has been suspended pending completion of the investigation. "I am unable to discuss the details of the case at this time," Marks wrote, in an email.

To best coordinate transfer and arrival of pre-K students from around the county, there are two legs to the bus trip. Bus. #42, which the boy was on, picked him up that morning in Lanark and took him and his classmates to the consolidated campus. The students are then taken off the various buses and transferred to the one that takes all of them to Brown.

According to Register's incident report, the bus monitor, Patricia Hollenbeck, said that when the bus arrived at Brown, "she had gotten off the bus and entered the lunchroom to finish some paperwork, and when she returned outside she noticed (Pate) was talking to another parent. Ms. Hollenbeck and Mrs. Pate then got back on the bus and Ms. Hollenbeck was dropped off at her residence."

            Richburg said her son told her he tried to open the door, but had been unable to. "He said he jumped up and down in the seat until he fell asleep and then when he woke up for being too hot, he cried some more," she said.

            Richburg said she had taken him to the doctor and he's OK. She also has asked to have the bus driver fired.

            "He's a real needy kid. He always needs somebody there with him," she said. "They failed to do a walkthrough of the bus. What if he got off that bus that was right there by the highway?"

            Richburg said the boy usually rides in the third seat behind the driver.

"I'm going to try and put him in Wakulla County next year," she said.