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Milwaukee girl left outside closed day care, found on freeway
A 6-year-old Milwaukee girl says she feared for her life after being left outside a closed day care Monday afternoon, Oct. 13, by her bus driver.
MILWAUKEE - A 6-year-old Milwaukee girl says she feared for her life after being left outside a closed day care Monday afternoon, Oct. 13, by her bus driver.
What we know:
Mariana Jones, a first-grader at Samuel Clemens Elementary, was dropped off at Precious Blessings Learning Center around 3:15 p.m. on Monday. Her family says the facility was closed for the federal holiday.
Instead of waiting, they say a driver with Safeway Transportation Services – a vendor for Milwaukee Public Schools – pulled away, leaving Jones alone near Fond du Lac Freeway.
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"Everyone was just ignoring me. I was screaming, crying for my life," Jones said. "I was ringing the doorbell like four or five times."
The child said she was terrified. Her parents said she started walking along the road in tears.
"I got scared because I thought someone was going to creep up to me," she said.
Thankfully, Jones knew her mother’s phone number by heart when a stranger stopped to help.
"I’m really smart, so I had told her my mom’s phone number," she said.
Within 10 minutes, a good samaritan stopped to help and called her mother, Cordessa Stewart.
Dig deeper:
"I’m just grateful that somebody was paying attention to my daughter," Stewart said. "And saw that didn’t look right – that she was young and crying and that she looked like she was lost."
Stewart said a miscommunication kept her from realizing the day care would be closed, but she believes the bus company could have done more.
"They could have waited a little minute to make sure she was retrieved by an adult," Stewart said. "She could have been hit by a car, she could have been snatched up by somebody. Kids go missing every day."
The girl’s grandmother, Lucretia Workman, is a bus driver for a different company. She said she went to Safeway but was dismissed.
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"Their attitude was like, well, it happened, we don’t care… it’s drop and go, she’s 6," Workman said. "We just don’t drop and go. Kids aren’t partial packages, they are precious cargo."
Safeway declined to comment.
What they're saying:
MPS provided the following statement:
"The safety and well-being of our students is our highest priority.
When students are being dropped off at a child care site, our procedure for the bus driver is not to leave until someone has received the child at the drop off site.
We are grateful the student was found safely, and we are working to determine exactly what happened in this case.
We will work with the bus company to reinforce procedures and take all appropriate action moving forward."
The Source: The information in this post was collected and produced by FOX6 News.