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Health & Fitness

WHAT IF THIS WERE YOUR CHILD?

 If This Were Your Child How Would You Handle It?

   Sending your child to school on a bus should be worry free for a parent of a preschooler. There is a reasonable expectation that when you put a 5 year old on a bus that he/she will arrive at their school safe and sound. But what happens when they don’t?  What happens when you find out at 3PM that the child you entrusted to the school bus company never arrived at school?  Scary to think about and boggles the mind to think it could even happen in an age of security cameras and GPS systems.

  On February 7th with temperatures hovering between 24 and 32 degrees such an incident did occur. A pre-school child destined for A Starting Place in Pearl River never made in to school that day. The child was picked up at his home by a school bus operated by Brega Transport as usual.  This bus that is specifically used to transport preschoolers was also manned by a monitor (a mandatory requirement). The bus followed its normal fixed route and arrived at A Starting Place as scheduled.  What happened after that should never have occurred.  One child never got off the bus. The driver left the school and went to his home (not unusual), with the monitor now off the bus. The bus was now parked at the driver’s home for hours with the driver waiting to start his afternoon route.  At 3PM the parents were at the school expecting to see their child, but he was not there. The School contacted Brega Transport.  Brega Transport contacted the driver now on the road and arriving at the school. The driver said he was sure that he dropped the boy off at the school. The monitor now back on the bus for afternoon route found the child sleeping in the back of the bus. The police had since arrived at the school to investigate the incident. Needless to say at this point there were many upset adults. Neither the driver nor the bus monitor checked the bus at the end of the earlier route. Both were taken to the police station for questioning and both were terminated under the contract provisions of a bid agreement between Brega Transport and the County of Rockland. The County pays for the transportation of pre-school children not the school districts, and is administrated by the Health Department.

    This incident happened in early February. I found out about this a couple of weeks ago from another transportation company. There were no details at that time about what happened or if indeed it happened at all. The Health Department was contacted and on April 18th they said they had no information on an incident of a child left on a school bus.  I assumed it was just a rumor and forgot about it. Much to my surprise on April 22nd I was contacted by the Rockland County Health Department that they do have information on the incident. The documents that I read were faxed to the Health Department on April 21st.  What happened between the date of the incident and April 21st almost two and a half months later?  If they did not have an incident report 2 weeks prior, something I think they would have remembered, what was the delay? Did Brega Transport ever report the incident to The Health Department in the first place as contractually required?  Maybe they did and the paperwork was misplaced, I will give them the benefit of the doubt.

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   Now back to the actual incident. Two grownups were on that bus. We would expect they were properly trained.  Actually both supposedly just had a refresher course on child safety. We can assume they both can count to 20 (about the maximum that a small school bus can carry).  You would think the bus driver or monitor would be counting the children getting on the bus.  If 15 get on 15 better get off. This is not “rocket science” as a County Legislator put it when awarding the TOR and TZXpress contract to Brega Transport.  Well Mr. Legislator apparently it is not as easy as you think. There are other methods of making sure a child is not left on a bus.  One system requires the driver or monitor to walk to the back of the bus and push a button before leaving the bus.  If the button is not pushed the vehicles horn beeps when the driver opens his door to leave requiring him to get back in the bus, walk to the back and push the button. Another system requires the driver to walk through the bus and open and close the emergency door handle before getting off.  Both are simple solutions and relatively inexpensive. The carrier knows of the systems and has installed them for other bus companies.

     All involved were very lucky this time, except the driver, if he is convicted of a crime his school bus driving days are over. The child was not injured. The temperature could have been much colder or much hotter, and would  have resulted in a much worse ending to this story. “Excellence in Transportation” is a 24/7 job and safety is a way of life for transportation companies.  Companies that are entrusted to getting children to school know there is no quick and easy way to safety and have procedures in place that make incidents like this inconceivable. Safety cannot just be taught in a classroom with videos and PowerPoint presentations.  Road Supervision and truly being involved with your drivers and monitors will avoid incidents like this to ever happen…..hopefully a lesson learned…..

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