Kizzy Emerson, a 4-year-old girl from Mansfield, Ohio, was accidentally locked inside a school bus for nearly six hours, WJW reports.
“Her dad put her on the bus about 7:45 a.m. The bus was having mechanical problems, they told him, so they went back to the bus garage to switch buses,” Rita Adams, the girls' mother, told the station.
The preschooler fell asleep while the students switched busses, and apparently no one thought to make sure all the children got off the first bus.
When Kizzy didn't come home on the afternoon bus, Adams became worried.
"After calling the school, she said, ‘Well, we have her down as absent.’ I said, ‘What do you mean absent? I put her on the bus this morning,’” Adams told WJW.
After searching the school, Adams and school officials looked in the bus garage where they found the 4-year-old "sweating, upset, and having to go to the bathroom."
"We are thankful this student is safe," Superintendent Dan Freund said in an email obtained by the Mansfield News Journal. "This is an oversight that cannot be tolerated. It is the responsibility of the bus driver and any adult aide on the bus to check every row to be sure all students have exited the bus. We are continuing to investigate what occurred. Neither the bus driver nor the aide will be on the bus this evening."
Adams, however, wants further punishment, and has taken Kizzy out of school for the rest of the year, WJW reports.
"I am taking legal action against the district and I want charges pressed on the ones responsible for this and I feel the school was just as responsible as well," she told the station.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated Kizzy Emerson did not come home on the evening bus. It was when Emerson did not arrive home on the afternoon bus that her parents first became aware she was missing.
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Posted: 05/10/2012 5:10 pm Updated: 05/14/2012 11:41 am