'Would You Help Me Find My Mommy?' — How A School Bus Driver Lost A Kindergartener On His First Day Riding The Bus
How would you react?
TikTok via @kellymulholland95 Oklahoma resident Kelly Mulholland took to the video-sharing app TikTok to detail a frightening incident involving her 5-year-old kindergartner son and his stepsister, who were both lost by the school bus service on their first day of school.
This is how a school bus driver lost a kindergartner on his first day riding the bus.
In Ring camera footage, Mulholland's son can be seen asking for help at a stranger's house. His shaky voice and cries show how worried he was.
"I'm sorry. Would you help me find my mommy?" he asks.
Mulholland stated that the school bus driver failed to follow proper procedures, resulting in her son and his stepsister being left at the wrong stop. After being an hour late and the children still not home yet, Mulholland confronted the bus driver. He looked visibly shaken by his mistake but just pointed down the road to where he dropped them off without giving street names or details.
"So I go back to my car to get my phone to call my boyfriend, and a car pulls up alongside of me and says, 'Hey, are you looking for 2 kids?'" she said.
The bus driver's mistake led the kids to make a half-mile trek in 105-degree heat in search of their parents.
It was only an hour later when they finally found help at a nearby home, the homeowner letting them in upon hearing the situation.
In a follow-up video, Mulholland shed light on her husband's heated confrontation with the school. Despite the school's lack of control over the buses, since a separate transportation office managed them, her husband managed to elicit a response from the department.
"They were very, very quick to respond to everything. Policies were not followed. Not only did he not check to make sure what stop they were supposed to get off at, he's also not supposed to let them off of the bus without a parent present," she said.
Mulholland lauded her children's smart thinking during the ordeal as they alternated between ringing doorbells for help — adopting a watch system as one stayed on the sidewalk while the other rang the doorbell.
Mulholland urged parents to educate their children on what to do if they ever found themselves lost.
With all the state-of-the-art technology available today, in particular doorbell cameras, she stressed the importance of children knowing how to use them.
Subsequent comments on the video widely called for the firing of the bus driver. Mulholland later followed up with another video, acknowledging that the department was going to act to rectify the situation.
"The department that we spoke to obviously was not happy about the situation, and they were very adamant that actions were going to be taken," Mulholland said.
Additionally, she received a text from the school informing her that their assigned bus number had been changed. While this doesn't confirm any specific actions against the driver, it was a clear acknowledgment of the glaring oversight that had put two children at risk.
This incident goes to show that while technology is helpful in cases like these, alert and kind neighbors who are willing to step up and help are crucial to solving a scary situation like this one.
Ethan Cotler is a writer and frequent contributor to YourTango living in Boston. His writing covers entertainment, news, and human interest stories.