New details about the ordeal of a little girl left alone on a Dallas ISD school bus surfaced Thursday. Parents of the girl viewed video from the bus late Thursday afternoon. NBC 5’s David Goins has the latest.
The parents of a preschool student say they have seen video from the Dallas ISD bus with their non-verbal autistic daughter was left alone for hours.
Keturah Crockett said the district allowed she and her husband an opportunity to view video from the bus on Tuesday when a bus driver ended their shift without realizing a child was still aboard.
“I could see her face, I could see that she was exhausted, I could see that she was tired, I could see that it took a toll on her body and her mind," Crockett said Thursday.
Crockett said the video also revealed the bus driver did not drive uninterrupted from the child's school in Oak Cliff to the Dallas ISD transportation service center in Lancaster.
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"He stopped at a Valero gas station and got out and left her in the bus," Crockett said. "Then he stopped at a McDonald's and again left her on the bus."
The 4-year-old was treated and released from a hospital early Wednesday after being treated for symptoms of dehydration and exhaustion.
She says she still has unanswered questions about what the experience on the bus was like for her daughter once the driver parked, turned off the engine and the camera system turned off.
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"Just to see she started off to how she ended and to still not know what happened or how she was reacting within those seven hours, it stays on my mind every day," Crockett said.
Crockett tells NBC 5 the district informed the family the bus driver was terminated and that a criminal investigation is underway for possible child endangerment charges.
Dallas ISD on Thursday had no further comment beyond its initial statement from earlier this week which said it was "appalled" the child was left alone and that it was conducting a thorough investigation.
PARENTS REACT AFTER FINDING OUT DAUGHTER LEFT ON BUS
Parents of a Dallas ISD preschooler say they’re traumatized and want answers about how their 4-year-old daughter was left alone on a school bus for hours on Tuesday.
Instead of arriving at school, the family said their daughter was left unattended miles away in 95-degree heat.
“She could have lost her life,” Keturah Crockett said about her daughter.
Crockett and her husband, Robert Pruitt, said what should have been a regular school day changed when she received a call about 30 minutes before the end of school from DISD Student Transportation Services.
“To get that call and to hear that she was left on that bus for seven hours, I just cannot imagine what she went through," Crockett said.
What they already know horrifies them. Instead of a short trip from their home to nearby Clinton P. Russell Elementary in Oak Cliff, the family said their daughter wasn’t taken off the bus at school but instead remained strapped in and ended up seven miles away in Lancaster. That’s where Dallas ISD operates a bus barn at the Pat Raney Service Center.
Crockett said an employee from that location called her and said her nonverbal daughter had been left on the bus on an afternoon when temperatures soared past 95 degrees.
“Ten minutes go by, 30 minutes go by, an hour goes by and nothing,” Pruitt said about his daughter. “No one is coming to get you, so I can only imagine the distress she was in.”
Dallas ISD told NBC 5 in a statement that an investigation was underway.
“We are appalled about the incident involving a pre-K student who remained on a bus yesterday. We are grateful the student is well and are conducting a thorough investigation,” according to a statement.
Crockett said the district transportation employee she spoke with told her another bus driver who prepared the bus for the afternoon route discovered her daughter, and then paramedics were called.
The parents said their daughter was taken to the hospital and received IV treatment and fluids for symptoms of dehydration. The family didn’t make it home from the hospital until the early morning hours on Wednesday.
“I feel like angels were watching over her, keeping her cool because not a lot of children make it out of that situation,” Crockett said.
“An entity I trusted to transport my daughter, literally around the corner, failed her; failed us completely,” Pruitt said.
Pruitt and Crockett said they have questions for their daughter’s school as well about why they did not receive an automated call notifying them she was absent. Both believe that someone would have located their daughter hours sooner if that call had been received.
They said as they wait to learn what discipline the bus driver might face, they carry an understandable parental urge to see what their little girl endured alone.
“I want to see the video from the time my daughter got on that bus in front of our apartment to the time paramedics took her off of it,” Pruitt said.
