Poplar Bluff kindergarten student left on bus for five hours Tuesday

POPLAR BLUFF, Mo. -- A kindergarten student escaped serious injury Tuesday after falling asleep and being left on his school bus for about five hours in bitterly cold temperatures.

Jojunia Mosley said she put her 5-year-old son, Zayvion Johnson, on the bus in front of their house at 415 N. Fifth St. at 7:55 a.m. Tuesday.

At about 1:15 p.m., she said, she was contacted by someone with Mark Twain Kindergarten Center's attendance office inquiring why her son was not in school.

After being placed on hold so the school could contact the bus garage, Mosley said, she hung up and she and her husband, Michael Mosley, drove to the garage.

When the Mosleys arrived at 1:30 p.m., she said, they saw the bus driver walking toward the garage with Zayvion.

"He was really tired; his tears were frozen to his face," Mosley said. "He had urinated on himself.

"When he got in the car, he said, 'Mommy, I can't feel my feet.'"

Mosley said Zayvion was immediately taken to Poplar Bluff Regional Medical Center to be examined.

"He didn't have frostbite; he was just really, really cold," Mosley said. "They wrapped him in a bunch of covers [and] let him stay in the hospital until he warmed up."

Mosley said Zayvion was fine Wednesday morning, but he didn't want to get on the bus or go to school at all.

"I kept him home for today," said Mosley, who described her son as being "pretty strong."

Poplar Bluff superintendent Ernie Lawson said the kindergartner was on the bus "way too long," which was unfortunate.

"He had been outside a long time," said Lawson, who spoke with Mosley on Tuesday night and learned Zayvion was OK.

"I'm sure she was scared; I'm sure he was scared," Lawson said. "Our goal is to make sure [every student] gets to school and into class safely, and we didn't do that.

"Our procedures broke down."

District officials felt they had sufficient procedures in place to ensure "that this doesn't happen, but it did. We'll check all our procedures to make sure the buses are checked properly."

School officials, Lawson said, also will make sure procedures were followed Tuesday and make appropriate changes.

"We will do everything we can do to make sure this doesn't happen again," Lawson said.

As school officials review their procedures, the Poplar Bluff Police Department is investigating the incident.

Detectives interviewed the bus driver Tuesday evening, according to Capt. Mike Elliott.

"The bus driver said this boy and his brother ... they do fall asleep every day on the bus," Elliott said.

Knowing this, Elliott said, the driver usually watches for the boys to exit the bus.

On Tuesday morning, Elliott said, the driver reported a student had been acting up and "at the end of his run, he wrote him up."

Procedures, according to what the driver reported, call for the "write up" to be given to a teacher's aide upon the bus' arrival at school.

Elliott said the driver reported handing in his paperwork as the children exited the bus.

"When he got back on the bus, it was empty," Elliott said. "Then, he said, he went back to the garage, where he also is a mechanic."

The driver, Elliott said, reported going into the building, but then returning to the bus because he "hadn't done a walk through on the bus. He did check the bus and didn't see anyone there."

Elliott said the driver went back to the bus a second time to get some information and again didn't see anyone.

After receiving a telephone call from the school, Elliott said, the driver checked the bus again. This time, Elliott said, he found the boy sitting up in the seat and took him off the bus to get him warmed up.

Elliott described the driver as being distraught over what had happened.

Mosley described her son's clothes as being "pretty thick" Tuesday. "I just figure when the cold air got to him, he snuggled together tighter," she said.

"He told the detective he was cold [and] his feet was cold," Mosley said. "He told the bus driver 'I want to go home' when the driver finally found him."

Mosley said Zayvion falls asleep every morning and afternoon on the bus, but there's usually someone on the bus to wake him up.

When Mosley first learned Zayvion wasn't in school, she said, she thought about "a lot worse. Someone had snatched my baby. As a mother, I thanked God he was alive when we got there. It was 8 degrees that morning."

Mosley said she has been praying Wednesday morning because the situation could have been much worse. "God wasn't ready for my baby to go; he was there with my son," she said.

Mosley said she doesn't want the driver to lose his job over this. "He does a nice job; it was just a mistake," she said.