Mom's PSA About Her 5-Year-Old Being Trapped On The Bus Is A Must-Read

Her kindergartener was stuck on a hot school bus for three hours

Every parent has fears at the start of a new school year — will my child be able to find their classroom? Will they make friends? Will they have someone to sit with at lunch? One mom’s story about her daughter’s bus ride on the first day of kindergarten is a chilling reminder of something else every parent needs to talk to their child about.

When Twitter user Coley’s five-year-old daughter boarded the bus on the first day of school, the mom had no idea of the terrifying morning about to play out.

In a thread, she tells the story of her kindergartener, who has a rare syndrome that causes weak muscle tone. She tells Scary Mommy that her daughter’s ankles are weak and that she’s worn braces in the past. She also has little muscle tone in her mouth so she can’t speak completely clearly, but is not behind her peers intellectually.

The little girl was stuck on the hot school bus for three entire hours before administrators figured out where she was.

Coley says she had an “off” feeling, as probably any mom who just put her kindergartner on the “big kid” bus for the first time would feel. As it turned out, her gut was correct.

The mom explains that she even showed up at the school to drop off paperwork around 9am, at which point no one mentioned her child not arriving at school yet.

And this is when terror set in for Coley and her husband.

After finding out that their daughter never showed up for school and realizing it’s been well over three hours since she boarded the bus, the parents are understandably panicked.

Coley arrived to her daughter, sweaty and red-face, but miraculously, perfectly OK.

The bus procedure the driver was supposed to follow didn’t happen — which is how Coley’s daughter got left behind.

And this is when the mom realizes just how long her child was alone on a hot bus.

Thankfully, the school took swift action and let the driver go. The little girl was given plenty of water and sent off to class.

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t scars for both the child and her parents.

In telling her story, Coley wants other parents to understand how fortunate her family was — but that the story could’ve had a very tragic ending.

She implores parents to remind bus drivers to check all of the seats before leaving, because her daughter survived — but another child might not.

Coley tells Scary Mommy that the story has an overall happy ending. She says her daughter is “doing great” now and has no fear about the bus, despite her scary ordeal. “Her temporary bus driver is wonderful and on Tuesday they get a regular bus driver,” she says. “The driver who left her on the bus was fired immediately after I left school and did not finish his day driving.” She also shares that the woman who pulled the little girl off the bus once it was discovered she was missing is her new driver.

For now, the mom is just feeling gratitude for her happy ending and a new awareness of what every child needs to know to stay safe on the bus.