NJ family upset after bus driver dropped off 9-year-old miles from home
MAYS LANDING, N.J. (CBS) –- A Mays Landing family is demanding accountability after they said their son's school bus dropped him off five miles from his house.
On Monday afternoon, Nick Ferguson said he was waiting in front of his house for his son's bus but it never showed up.
"Worried, scared, just not sure where he would've been," Ferguson said.
As he and his wife called Sheppard Bus Service's dispatch office multiple times to find out where his son's school bus was located, his wife got a call from an unknown number.
"So my wife decided to click over to answer, and she got, 'I have your son,'" Ferguson said. "[The woman on the other end of the call said], 'He's OK.' Apparently, the bus driver dropped him off at the last stop, says, 'Last stop, everybody off.'"
He said the woman on the phone was a grandmother who happened to be picking up her grandson and helped Ferguson's son call his parents.
Ferguson had to drive five miles from his house to pick up his son.
"I just hugged him and said, 'You're safe,'" Ferguson said. "You could just tell he was holding back tears."
A representative from Sheppard Bus Service told CBS News Philadelphia he wasn't aware of the incident until a reporter called them Wednesday morning.
A few hours later, the company told us the driver involved was suspended without pay pending an investigation.
The representative said the company's working to ensure this never happens again but Ferguson said, for now, he's not taking another chance.
"I told [my son] I'll pick him up and drop him off until we get this all sorted out," Ferguson said. "You just don't leave a kid at a bus stop that's not his and just pull away."
