Portsmouth, Va. - Four-year old Emani Scott has now missed three days of school. His mother, Felicia Scott, says he's too afraid to go back. Last Friday, Emani was left alone on his Head Start school bus. NewsChannel 3 now knows he was there for several hours.
"I just feel so sorry for him,” Scott says. “So bad for him. I wish I was there."
Scott says Emani was picked up just before 9 that morning; it wasn't until a mechanic working on the bus found him.
"As soon as my mechanic got on the bus, a little kid poked his head out from behind the seat,” says Airline Automotive & Truck Center General Manager Kirk Peak. “It looked like he had just woken up.
Peak’s auto shop is right across the street from Head Start in Portsmouth, where Emani was supposed to be. Peak says this was a first.
"We’ve never found anyone on a bus,” he says. “We've had many people sleeping in their cars."
Peak says his mechanic found Emani under a seat around 12:15 p.m., which means Emani had been on the bus alone for more than three hours.
"Brought him into our little break room where our TV is and were trying to make sure he was ok,” Peak says.
"Suppose the mechanic wasn't such a nice guy,” Scott says. “I mean thank God he was."
Scott says she was never contacted by Head Start and didn't find out what happened until she picked him up, which was after 2 p.m.
"That is very disturbing to me," she says. "I mean imagine how he was feeling, you know wanting to know where everybody was. His mom, the bus driver, I know he was scared. "
The bus driver has been fired in this case, but Scott says it doesn't erase what happened.
"It has done some harm to him, I feel," she says.
