Lost For 4 Hours
The driver of a minivan taking a 9-year-old autistic boy, Justin Colon, to summer camp got lost for four hours and failed to bring the child to his program. When Justin’s mother, Dawn Gorman, contacted the bus driver by cell phone, the driver was unable to say where he was and stopped answering the phone after awhile. Gorman then called the police, as reported in today’s Asbury Park Press:
Capt. Bruce Hall of the Marlboro Police Department, said one of his officers spotted the vehicle a mile or so from the camp facility and brought the child to the police department. The driver, who had an unauthorized person — a friend — with him in the minivan, said he was lost for that period of time, Hall said.
Gorman refused to send her child with the same transportation company — Severe Transportation — although the company sent a new driver on Tuesday.
She said the Harbor Haven school in Marlboro, which conducts the summer camp, contacted her and offered to pick up and drop off her son so she could get reliable transportation.
The school told her not to worry about the cost and that they would wait to see if the Edison school district would pay for it, she said.
Bill Muzzio, transportation director for the Edison school district, said the board terminated the contract with Severe Transportation for the run to the Marlboro campsite and initiated a new contract with Harbor Haven on Tuesday. The board is still using Severe Transportation for other runs.
As of Tuesday evening, Gorman was still not sure if she would send her child in the school transportation service or keep him home.
“It’s a very difficult situation after what I’ve been through,” she said.
I’m pretty sure my son would have been upset to find himself on a bus (and not his usual schoolbus) after one hour, but four hours? And Charlie would have been quite aware that the driver was lost. Am grateful he has summer school in district, with a bus from the county’s education commission.
Tags: asd, asperger, autism, autism blog, bus, disabilities blog, disability, driver, Family, family blog, lost, Parenting, pdd-nos, Schoolbus
18 opinions for Lost For 4 Hours
Mrs. C
Jul 2, 2008 at 6:41 pm
I’m even more cynical than that. Who’s this “friend” and were they taking indecent liberties with the child? Is he ok??? Were they drinking or doing drugs?
I’d wanna know.
Andrea
Jul 2, 2008 at 6:57 pm
I’m with you, Mrs. C. Something sounds a bit odd about that. Maybe nothing illicit was going on - they could have been grocery shopping for all anyone knows - but the other ‘friend’ on the bus doesn’t make it look too good.
I was very happy to see that we got the same driver as last summer.
Leanne
Jul 2, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Yeah, 4 hours is a long time to be “lost”. And then to only be a mile from the destination after all that time. Ugh.
Bonnie Sayers
Jul 2, 2008 at 7:22 pm
Wow that is almost unbelievable. The articl did not mention whether the boy was verbal or not. I would assume the child would be thirsty, hungry and need to use the bathroom.
The driver should be fired from company. I would drive kid myself.
Regan
Jul 2, 2008 at 7:25 pm
That seems really weird. Presumably it would take less than 4 hours for the driver to go back to the dispatch office to get directions if his cell phone was dead or he had no other radio contact.
If I was Mrs. Gorman, I’d be pretty skeptical of the whole thing, too; that response doesn’t seem out of bounds.
Kristina Chew, PhD
Jul 2, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Yes, I had my eyebrows just reading the first paragraph and then the “friend” in the minivan? The company being called “Severe Transportation” seems too something!
We have a great bus driver and aide—-both really friendly, asking questions about Charlie, very understanding the day I overslept last week.
Kristina Chew, PhD
Jul 2, 2008 at 8:31 pm
And on the subject of summer camp—-7-year-old autistic boy wanders from camp and ends up on a highway, where his mother sees him “along Route 100″—-from ABC2 news in Maryland.
Sister Wolf
Jul 2, 2008 at 8:54 pm
What a nightmare. I don’t blame that mother for being traumatized. Don’t those transportation companies have to be licensed and do background checks of their drivers? They should be subject to huge fines or something!
Bonnie Sayers
Jul 2, 2008 at 9:15 pm
Wow that Mother on the highway in MD finding her kid. I would not have had any breath in me to run after the kid, would have had an asthma attack or collapsed.
Matt’s lips were really dry and chapped when I got him at camp, they had a field trip and he is all sun burned. I will not send him for the soak cityplace at the end of the month. Last year I did not send him on the one they did today, but tried it this time.
Marla
Jul 3, 2008 at 12:38 am
That is terrible. I would have totally freaked out. M would have been beyond unhappy and I can’t even imagine the driver having any idea what to do.
Kristina Chew, PhD
Jul 3, 2008 at 1:29 am
I’m not sure who would be freaking out more—the driver, Charlie, or me!
sharon
Jul 3, 2008 at 7:26 am
I am feeling much better that my boys don’t want to go to any camp and are home with me.
Storkdok
Jul 3, 2008 at 7:41 am
It is because of stories like these that I just can’t let Alex be driven except by the actual bus service for the school district, not a driving service they hire. I would be very suspicious of that driver and the unauthorized person in the car and the unaccounted hours. I wonder if the driver was fingerprinted and had a background check before being hired? That driving service has a lot of “splanin” to do!
I had to drive my son for years up to 3 hours a day in the car (for me, he had half that time in the car and I used it as time to engage and teach him), because of an incident not unlike this one that happened in the Portland, ME area about 5 or 6 years ago.
In the “incident” here it was that the driver drove home and supposedly left the little non-verbal boy in the van in his driveway. After about 3 hours, the boy, 3 years old, somehow got out of his car seat and knocked on the front door, and the wife of the driver answered and found him. The mother and school were frantic, trying to find him. The driver did some errands in the van, too. Well, I thought that was really weird, and I was not surprised later to hear the mother had found that the boys underwear was on backwards. Hmm… There was no other news on this that I could find out. But there was no way I would take a chance with my son, so I quit my job and did the driving.
farmwifetwo
Jul 3, 2008 at 8:31 am
I too would probably have taken my child to the Dr’s afterwards….. but I’m VERY cynical.
As for being lost… would not have happened with my 2. One you would get pointing in the direction he wished to go and “left, right” comments. The other you would have gotten full directions, street names, stop signs etc etc.
So there would have been no excuses about being “lost”.
S
Paula
Jul 3, 2008 at 8:59 am
I can easily imagine being lost for 4 hours. I’ve been lost for up to an hour, at least. But then again, I know better than to apply for a job with a transportation service! (Even gps doesn’t always help me.) I do hope the parents have the child checked by a physician.
Daisy
Jul 3, 2008 at 12:07 pm
This bothers me to no end. There are just too many questions. It’s easy for me to say, “I’d take him to the counselor or doctor ASAP,” but I’d probably just be so relieved to have him back safely I’d collapse.
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