CHARLOTTE (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — Two moms banded together and used a car to block in a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools’ bus driver suspected of driving while impaired with almost two dozen children on the bus.
One of the moms says she and another mom were afraid the bus driver might try to drive away, so one of them took their car and pulled it in front of the bus to block in the driver Thursday afternoon.
CMS bus operator accused of driving impaired with 21 children onboard: CMPD
Riley Lea was startled by her 6 and 7-year-old sons Thursday afternoon
“They ran to the house screaming and crying, I didn’t know what was going on,” said Lea.
They told her their school bus driver was driving all over the place and they were scared.
“I just ran full speed down there, another mom got her truck, blocked her off so she couldn’t leave,” said Lea.
Someone reported that a bus driver was driving erratically in a neighborhood on Lightspun Lane Thursday afternoon.
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In video of the scene, kids were standing around the bus after police got there.
“And at that point, it’s 30 kids on the side of the road screaming and crying for their mom. You know, so very traumatic for most of the kids,” said Lea.
A police report lists 21 students ranging from 6 years old to 10 years old on board the bus from Oakdale Elementary.
The report says the driver was driving the school bus while impaired and quote “placed the 21 students on board the bus at a substantial risk of harm”
“Anything could have happened she could have killed anybody–herself, kids, other people,” said Lea.
Lea says her son had a bloody nose.
“He said he hit his face probably 5 or 6 times while she was hitting the brakes, she ran stop signs,” said Lea.
The bus driver, 70-year-old, Sylvia Ann Dollard, was arrested and charged with driving while impaired.
Court documents say Dollard performed poorly on a field sobriety test, had a negative portable breath test, and that the officer suspected drug impairment.
It’s unclear the type of drug that she’s accused of having in her system.
“Going through my mind is like, ‘How dare you?’” said Lea.
Lea says the trauma her sons now face is apparent in video she found on her doorbell camera right after the bus ride.
“My son asked my other son, ‘Did you think we were going to die?’ And it’s heart-wrenching, it broke my heart to hear him say that,” said Lea.
She took her sons to the hospital to be checked out.
CMS says the bus driver is suspended and that some parents came to the scene to pick their children up, while other students were put on another bus and taken home.
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