Suit filed after tot left asleep inside bus

Española superintendent says driver was on new route with younger kids that day

Parents of an Española boy are suing the local school system, saying that after their 3-year-old son fell asleep on a school bus, he was left in the vehicle for five hours before anyone noticed.

According to their complaint, the Los Niños Kindergarten Center student in late May 2017 was supposed to be dropped off at a day care center following his morning half-day of preschool.

But the boy fell asleep on the bus, the lawsuit says, and after all the other children were dropped off, driver Melissa Martinez wrongly believed the bus was empty and drove it to her home, where she parked and locked it.

When the boy woke up, the parents say, he tried to get out of the bus but couldn’t open the door.

“He had no food or drink,” the complaints says, “the bus was very hot, and he was extremely upset, afraid and crying … and ultimately urinated in his pants.”

When the boy eventually figured out how to pull the lever that opened the door, the complaint says, he was “met by the barking dogs of the bus driver waiting outside the bus door.”

The complaint says Martinez, who is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit, did not follow a policy that requires drivers to walk through the bus before leaving and closing the door.

Española Public Schools Superintendent Bobbie Gutierrez said she was not in charge on the date of the incident — Deputy Superintendent Denise Johnston was — but that it was her understanding that Martinez regularly drove a bus for junior high school students and was substituting on the younger children’s route that day.

“Apparently she did not do her posttrip check and the little boy fell asleep,” Gutierrez said.

Gutierrez said that was “no excuse” but noted Martinez had been a bus driver for about 24 years before the incident and had a “perfect record,” but was “not used to the little ones” who sometimes fall asleep on the bus.

“It was just one of those sad and unfortunate incidents,” Gutierrez said.

Martinez did not respond to a message seeking comment.

Gutierrez said Johnston, as acting superintendent, put Martinez on leave following the incident, and the driver was never put back on a bus route but ended up doing office work until she retired in December.

The boy’s parents say the school district failed to supervise Martinez, who failed to exercise ordinary care or follow policy and their son suffered injury “in the form of physiological trauma” as a result.

They are seeking an unspecified amount of compensatory damages.