Child crying after being forgotten by daycare.The family of a North Texas girl now has closure and can move forward from a traumatizing incident thanks to a settlement secured against a shuttle bus company by our Texas child injury attorneys at The Button Law Firm.

In the Spring of 2022, a shuttle bus company was responsible for transporting a group of young students to school in a van, including a little girl. Like children often do, one little girl fell asleep during the ride to school. When she awoke near a distribution warehouse, she was sweating, confused, and frightened. She had no idea where she was, yet she managed to figure out how to unlock the van.

No one noticed her wandering through the parking lot, and she bravely walked nearly one mile, unattended, on a dangerous two-lane road with several large trucks. She reached a donut shop, where she was able to get help and contact her mom.

As you can imagine, that experience was overwhelming for the young child. She developed severe anxiety and suffered from nightmares, feeling like she was drowning, gasping for air, and lost and unable to find her worried mom. No longer able to trust the shuttle company, her mom had to rearrange her work schedule so she could safely take and pick up her daughter from school.

The little girl’s mother immediately contacted our experienced Texas child injury lawyers at The Button Law Firm to hold the shuttle company accountable for her daughter’s trauma and to prevent other children from experiencing a similar situation—or an outcome that could have been fatal. The settlement secured by our team will provide the family with tools to help the child heal psychologically and emotionally.

How This Child Neglect Incident Could Have Been Prevented

This entire incident was 100% preventable. All transportation services that are responsible for the care and safety of children are required to follow specific rules, as outlined by Texas Health and Human Services. The four precautions for drivers when loading and unloading children are as follows:

  1. Load and unload children at the curbside of the vehicle or in a protected parking area or driveway
  2. Do not allow a child to cross a street unless the child is accompanied by an adult any time before entering or after leaving a vehicle
  3. Account for all children exiting the vehicle before leaving it unattended
  4. Never leave a child unattended in a vehicle

Clearly the shuttle company neglected to follow three of the four state regulations to keep the little girl safe. Thankfully, leaving the child unattended in a locked van in Texas didn’t turn fatal, but this incident could have easily been prevented if the shuttle company had properly trained and supervised its employees on how to monitor the children in their care.

How The Button Law Firm Can Help Your Family with a Child Injury Case in Texas

If your child was neglected at daycare, camp, or school, contact our compassionate child injury attorneys at The Button Law Firm. We are experts in working on cases in Texas involving children, like this case with the little girl who was left in the locked shuttle van. Our attorneys will listen to you and your child to assess the situation and determine where a daycare, camp, or school fell short. 

Russell Button
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Dallas, Houston, and Midland Texas trial and personal injury lawyer dedicated to securing justice for clients.

DISCLAIMER: The results are specific to the facts and legal circumstances of each of the clients' cases and should not be used to form an expectation that the same results could be obtained for other clients in similar matters without reference to the specific factual and legal circumstances of each client's case.