An Oregon mom is furious after her toddler daughter was reportedly left on a bus in near-freezing temperatures for several hours.
The distraught mom, Cassandra Robinson, told local Fox affiliate KPTV that her daughter, 2, spent the entire class period at Doris’s Place daycare in Aumsville alone on the school bus on Monday, Jan. 27, after the driver and daycare workers forgot her there.
Temperatures reached as low as 36 degrees as the little girl was stuck, buckled into a car seat, on the bus with no shoes or coat for around three hours, KPTV reported. The toddler also soiled her diaper on the bus.
Employees at the Family Building Blocks-owned daycare reportedly discovered Robinson’s daughter on the bus around the time it was supposed to bring her home, and called her mom to inform her of the situation.
“Initially,” Robinson told KPTV, “you are thinking, ‘Did she fall down?’ Or something innocuous but normal. ‘Was she bickering with another child?’ Something like that.”
But when she learned the truth, it took her “a minute” to wrap her head around what had happened to her daughter.
“I said, ‘I’m trying to process this information, because what do you mean?’ And so it takes me a minute but I’m like, ‘How long was she on the bus for?’ ” Robinson recalled, “and [the daycare worker] said, ‘The whole class period.’ And I was like, ‘What do you mean?’ ”
Worried about her daughter, the mom headed to Doris’s Place, where the toddler was out of the cold, but not acting like herself, she told KPTV. “She was very quiet,” the mom said. “She didn’t run up to hug me, which is normal for her. She just sat there and looked at me.”
And this change in behavior has continued, Robinson told the outlet several days after the Jan. 27 incident. “Normally, when she plays, she plays by herself,” the mom said. “But now if I’m not in the room, she will say, ‘Come sit with me, come sit next to me.’ Or if I’m on the couch already she will bring her toys to me.”
Doris’s Place workers have since apologized to Robinson for leaving her daughter on the bus, but the mom wants someone to be held responsible, she told KPTV. And though her daughter will not be returning to the daycare, she also wants to make sure that history does not repeat itself.
“All of them didn’t do their job. It wasn’t just the bus driver. Everyone is liable, everyone is responsible, everyone needs to take accountability, all of them,” she said.
Robinson said she has received “a series of apologies” since the incident, and “that’s nice but it doesn’t change anything that they let happen.”
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While “it could have been so much worse, so much worse,” for her little girl, it is still “not okay,” she told KPTV. “I’m so thankful that conditions were right enough that she’s physically unharmed, but it could have gone any other way.”
The Aumsville Police Department is investigating the incident along with the Oregon State Department of Human Services and the Office of Training Investigations and Safety, KPTV reported.
The Oregon Department of Early Learning and Care told KPTV in a statement that the Aumsville daycare self-reported the school bus incident and the department is in the process of issuing a citation for non-compliance with rules on supervision and vehicle safety.
PEOPLE reached out to Family Building Blocks and Doris’s Place for comment on Saturday, Feb. 1, but did not immediately receive a response.
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