LEE COUNTY, Fla. -- A Southwest Florida mother says her daughters were dropped off at the wrong bus stop and left there for hours. This comes just days after Fox 4 told you about another child who was dropped off at a local store instead of his bus stop.
"I began to feel faint, I began to feel like my heart was about to stop." Ferresha Durden says her body went numb knowing her daughters never made it home from their first day of school. "I wanted to die."
Durden's daughters are only 7 and 11 years old. She tells Fox 4 they were wandering the streets in Lehigh Acres after the bus driver dropped them off at the wrong stop. "Tired, they were thirsty, their feet were hurting and swollen and red, and it was just (emotional) horrible."
She tells me the district won't confirm exactly where her girls were left and only knows what her daughters remember. "It's devastating, ridiculous and unnecessary."
The Lee County School District's transportation department sent out an alert for the bus driver to go back to find the girls.
Durden says the driver found them miles away from the wrong stop. "I didn't get a call they were at the school for me to pick them up until 6:50 pm."
That's nearly four hours after the girls were supposed to be home. That's when Durden confronted the bus driver. "She said that she was frustrated and hot and that she had marked the wrong bus stop because she was trying to make it home to get her baby from day care."
Well, now Durden is frustrated and says her daughters fear riding the bus.
Fox 4 took her concerns to the Lee County School District, where a spokesperson says they would be investigating Durden's concerns and responding in an email.
A district representative says the driver is the subject of disciplinary action, and they're contacting the girl's parents to make sure all precautions are taken. The district also says leaders with the the Department of Transportation will be speaking will all drivers to keep this sort of thing from happening again.
