BOSTON — The family of an 8-year-old boy with autism who was struck by a school bus and seriously injured in Jamaica Plain in December is suing the busing company.
Transdev North America, a Boston Public Schools’ contractor, is facing the lawsuit months after the Dec. 6 incident outside the Curley K-8 School in Jamaica Plain. Around 3 p.m., the school bus driver veered onto the sidewalk and crashed directly into the student as he walked with a school aide.
The boy sustained a broken femur, resulting in complex surgery and months of in-patient hospital care and treatment, his attorneys said. He continues to suffer significant post-traumatic stress as a result of the crash.
The school bus’s dashboard camera captured the crash, which took down part of a chainlink fence.
The video, released by the family’s attorneys on Tuesday, shows shows the bus driver abruptly start the bus and swerve onto the sidewalk and into pedestrians. The attorneys said the bus driver and bus safety monitor were napping in their seats just moments before crash.
“This frightening event almost took my child’s life,” Cynthia Davis, the boy’s guardian, said in a statement on Tuesday.
“It is shocking to read the string of lies that the driver gave to the police. This should never happen,“ Davis said. ”The videos don’t lie. And it’s downright shameful that this school bus company has a track record of hitting and killing children all over Boston."
The lawsuit follows an independent safety review launched by the city of Boston to investigate the Boston Public Schools’ bus contractor’s past safety incidents, including a school bus crash in Boston that killed a kindergarten student in April.
“Transdev must be held to account to protect our children and prevent this from ever happening again,” Davis said.
The complaint, filed in Suffolk County Court by attorneys at Sweeney Merrigan Law and Breakstone, White & Gluck, alleges gross negligence by Transdev and its employees, citing inadequate supervision, failure to ensure alert and competent staff, and systemic safety failures.
“Our client is lucky to be alive today,” J. Tucker Merrigan, managing partner at Sweeney Merrigan, said in a statement.
“For a bus company that is paid over $100 million annually by the city of Boston, Transdev has clearly failed its responsibility to hire, train and supervise its drivers for the safety of Boston school children,” Merrigan said. “Even if this brave young man is able to physically recover, the emotional scars of this experience will never go away.”
Boston 25 has reached out to Transdev North America and Boston Public Schools for comment.
In a statement in December after the crash, Boston Public Schools said, “We are extremely grateful to the Curley School staff and Boston EMS, Boston Police, and Boston Fire for the care they provided to the student and staff member who were hurt as well as anyone who witnessed the incident.”
According to the police report, the bus driver made multiple false claims, including that the bus experienced a “mechanical issue (steering).” But the investigating officer found that all the mechanical issues on the school bus were a result of the crash.
The driver also claimed “as he was pulling the bus forward, a vehicle cut in front of him. In an attempt to avoid the vehicle and [the student], he turned the steering wheel in the opposite direction but mistakenly pressed the gas pedal instead of the brake.” However, the dashcam video footage shows there was no second vehicle. Instead, the video shows the driver steer the bus into the direction of two pedestrians, running them over.
The police report also details that the investigating officer reviewing the crash footage saw the driver’s immediate reaction after the crash was to “smile and laugh about the accident and shrugs his shoulders.”
In May, the city of Boston hired a former federal prosecutor to conduct an independent investigation of Transdev, after one of its bus drivers fatally struck a five-year-old boy.
The Transdev driver involved in that crash not only had an expired state-required certification but was involved in two other driving incidents earlier in April and was pulled off the road for retraining less than two weeks before the deadly crash.
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Transdev is a privately-owned French company with its U.S. headquarters located near Chicago. Since it began contracting with Boston Public Schools in 2013, Transdev has faced at least 15 other personal injury lawsuits, according to Davis’ attorneys.
The December crash remains under investigation by Boston Police.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.
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