A school bus driver is out of a job after she left a sick child on the side of the road.
According to WSPA, District spokeswoman Melissa Robinette said the driver “resigned in lieu of termination” Tuesday.
Joe Stone, 11, got picked up from his bus stop on Tuesday and immediately called his mom to say he was sick.
“He says, ‘Mom, help me, please.’ He says, ‘My chest is beating really hard and I really need to throw up.’ He said, ‘I feel like I can’t breathe,'” said Victoria Stone, Joe’s mother.
She told him to tell his bus driver. The bus driver then stopped at the next bus stop, which was Betty Breeden’s driveway, and Joe got off.
“The bus went on and the child was left there in the grass,” said Breeden.
Breeden is a friend of the family. Stone drove over to Breeden’s house to find her son hunched over near the driveway.
“If I wouldn’t have slowed down, I would have run over my own child. He was on his knees, throwing up,” said Stone. “The bus was gone. There was no one in sight.”
District spokeswoman Melissa Robinette said the driver violated policy and she hopes other drivers learn from this incident.
“Our policy is very clear. A driver is not supposed to leave a child at an unassigned bus stop and certainly in a situation like this, which is unusual, not to leave a child unattended,” said Robinette.
“I understand that they’re pressed. They have time limits and they have to get to this school and that school. But a child’s life is more important than getting any child to school on time,” said Stone.
She says the driver had 11 years of experience of driving school buses and she had no prior incidents on her record.
According to Robinette, bus drivers are required to have 35 hours of driving experience before they are given a job. South Carolina requires 10 hours minimum of training every year after that. She says drivers in District 5 get about 20 hours.
A spokesperson for the Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office said Joe’s parents also filed a report with the school resource officer and an investigator to follow up.
