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Posted on Sat, Jul. 19, 2008
Day camp employee is fired after bus incident
7-year-old girl was left on bus for two hours after children’s field trip to the movies
By LEE HIGGINS - lhiggins@thestate.com
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Other incidents
Thursday wasn’t the first time a child has been left on a bus this year in the Columbia area.
In June, 46-year-old Duane Mills was charged with unlawful conduct toward a child. He was accused of leaving a 4-year-old girl in a locked child-care bus in the sun for about 3½ hours outside Conyers Early Learning Center on Colonial Drive in Columbia. She was treated and released at an area hospital.
Last May, 64-year-old Willie Edward Ritter, owner of W.E. Ritter day-care center on Columbia College Drive, was charged with homicide by child abuse. He was accused of leaving a 10-month-old boy in a day-care van for about seven hours, killing him. The boy died of hyperthermia, commonly known as heatstroke.
Ritter is scheduled to go on trial in September, the 5th Circuit solicitor’s office said Friday.
Cars and heat
Vehicles can heat up quickly in the summer.
On an 85-degree day, the temperature inside a car with windows opened slightly can reach 102 degrees within 10 minutes.
After 30 minutes, it will reach 120 degrees.
On hot and humid days, the temperature inside a car parked in the sun can rise more than 30 degrees per minute.
SOURCES: Department of Geosciences at San Francisco State University and the Humane Society of the United States
Four people have been fired or disciplined after a 7-year-old Columbia girl was left on a Richland 2 bus for two hours at the end of Boys & Girls Club field trip Thursday.
The girl fell asleep as she was returning to Killian Elementary from a trip to the movies at the Village at Sandhill. She was taken by family members to a hospital for evaluation, authorities said.
Dehydrated, the girl was given fluids and released, said Carter Clark, chief executive officer of the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Midlands.
A club employee was fired Friday and two other employees remain suspended without pay, Clark said.
A Richland 2 bus driver was first put on paid leave but is now no longer employed, district spokeswoman Theresa Riley said.
The girl’s family doesn’t want to prosecute, according to the incident report filed with the Richland County Sheriff’s Department.
The girl returned to the club’s summer day camp Friday, Clark said.
“She is back in the program today and from all reports seems to be doing very well,” Clark said.
The girl was found about 3:30 p.m. Thursday by a district employee, Clark said.
It was about 90 degrees at that time in the area where the bus was parked, the National Weather Service estimated.
Riley did not know whether any windows were open on the bus, which was parked behind the school.
The girl was one of 32 children on the bus, ranging in age from 6 to 11, Clark said. Three paid club employees were chaperoning, Clark said.
Boys & Girls Club policy requires that the bus be cleared and that campers be checked off a roster when they board and get off the bus, Clark said.
The employee terminated was “the last staff person off the bus, and her responsibility was to make sure the child was off the bus,” Clark said.
Any employee who is determined to have put a child’s safety in jeopardy will be terminated, Clark said. The investigation is continuing, he said.
School district policy also requires bus drivers to clear out the bus after a trip, Riley said. They must walk to the back, look in and under seats for children, check for damage, check the emergency door and sweep it if necessary.
“When they finish a route, they’re supposed to check the bus and make sure all the children are off,” Riley said.
Riley would not say whether the driver was terminated or resigned.
Clark, who has held his position with the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Midlands for nearly six years, said no other such incidents have occurred during his tenure and he’s not aware of any incidents prior to that.
Reach Higgins at (803) 771-8570.