A four-year-old girl from Sharjah narrowly escaped a potentially fatal incident after being left behind in her school bus, her parents revealed to Khaleej Times on Friday.
The incident occurred recently when the girl, who had just started kindergarten, fell asleep during the morning bus ride. The bus conductor failed to notice her and left her in the bus until he found her crying during the second trip for boys.
The girl’s mother recounted the ordeal, emphasizing the importance of vigilance. “It has been a few days since she started going to KG1. She wakes up at 5 am, and the bus comes at 6 am. She reaches the school by 6:35 am. Children who wake up this early may fall asleep. So, I make it a point to remind the conductor to take care of her.”
On the day of the incident, the girl boarded the bus at 6 am but didn’t reach her classroom. “At 7:30 am, the conductor called to inform me that my child fell asleep and was left behind in the bus. I told him to immediately drop her home, but he didn’t,” the mother said. The parents rushed to the school by 8:15 am, only to find their daughter hadn’t arrived yet.
The mother narrated that her daughter finally reached school by 8:40 am. The staff played down the incident, calling it a minor oversight. “What if another bus was operated for the second trip? They would have known only by noon during the return trip,” she remarked, referencing past tragic cases where children have suffocated after being left in vehicles.
As a result of this scare, the family has withdrawn their daughter from the school and filed a complaint with the local authorities. The girl will not return to school this year, and her parents have opted for online education instead. “I can’t find the heart to send her to school until she is a bit older to look after herself,” the mother said. “Our trust has been broken. We are lucky to get our child alive; I pray no other parents and child undergo such a miserable situation.”
