Mother wants answers after son's bus ride to school takes nearly 4 hours

BOSTON — The boy's mom said her son thankfully slept most of the nearly four-hour ride, but she is still terrified not knowing where he was for most of the morning.

A little boy's trip to school that normally takes no more than 40 minutes ended up taking more than four hours, and now his mother is demanding answers.

"I got a phone call at almost 10 saying Demire has not arrived at school yet, and I'm like, 'What do you mean? Where is he?'" said Dominic Walker, Demire's mom. "And she said, 'The bus driver hasn't dropped him off.'"

The five-year-old was picked up at 7:30 a.m. from Malden, his mom didn't recognize the bus driver. Turns out it was his first day on the job.

"I asked him for his name, I took down the phone number," Dominic Walker said.

So, when he didn’t show up to school, she gave him a call.

"He couldn't speak English, so when I said where are you he said, 'Bad traffic, bad traffic,'" Walker recalled.

But more time passed and still no sign of her son. She claims the bus company – B and D Transportation – never called her.

"No clue, no explanation at all, I have no clue where my son has been in all the hours, three and a half hours going on four," she said.

He finally showed up at school at 11 a.m., and she took him straight to Boston Medical Center to make sure nothing had happened to him on his way to school.

"He was scared when he saw me and was crying in the hospital, and they kept trying to keep him in good spirit, but he was scared," Dominic Walker said.

His physical checkup showed no obvious signs of any injury.

Boston Public Schools said in a statement:

Boston Public Schools always takes seriously the safety and wellbeing of all students.  This incident involved a private transportation contractor, who is working cooperatively with us as we look into this matter.

The bus company also told the school department that the driver got lost and confused trying to pick up other students on the way to Dorchester.

The boy's mom says she was told by the bus company that the driver no longer works for them.

She plans on driving her son to school for the foreseeable future.

Cox Media Group