ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — A 6-year-old girl fell asleep on her bus ride to school Monday and, when all the other kids got off, she stayed on. To make matters worse, the girl's mother said she wasn't told until hours after school was over.
Monday morning at Lawton Chiles Elementary, while most students were already at school, 6-year-old Tyriayle Denson was not with them.
"She said, ‘Mom, I woke up, I was alone, I looked up and there was nobody,'" Felicia Ross said.
While on the Orange County bus headed to school, Tyriayle fell asleep and no one noticed, at least not right away, that Tyriale didn't get off the bus. She woke up and didn't know the time. She only knew she was on the bus at a big school.
"God knows, we don't know where you went. She was like, 'Mom, yes and I was scared,'" Ross said.
However, the bus driver and monitor said they discovered the girl during their required check after they stopped the bus at the end of their route at East River High School. She was returned to Lawton Elementary School half an hour after school started.
"I'm furious, because I want answers and I need them now," Ross said.
The thing that really made Ross angry was the school district didn't contact her until 6:00pm Monday when she received an automated message from the school saying her daughter had missed school. Now, she says, Tyryiale is too afraid to take the bus and she can't understand how something like this could happen.
"Thank God, God was watching over my daughter. What if? What if? That's the only thing that continues to go through my mind," Ross said.
The school district said, after the bus monitor walked the girl back into school, for some reason the principal was never notified of the problem. That's why the girl's mother was never contacted.