A 5-year-old Pennsylvania boy missed his first day of kindergarten after being left alone on a locked school bus for nearly four hours.
The driver didn't notice that Prince Oquendo didn't get off the bus Tuesday at Monocacy Elementary Center in Berks County. The Reading Eagle reports the driver then returned to the bus parking lot and got off without walking up and down the aisles, which is standard procedure.
"He said he cried himself to sleep twice," the boy's father Yahlison Ayala said. "He tried to knock on the door for someone to open."
Prince's mother discovered him missing when he didn't return home after school.
The boy was found on the bus. She took him to a hospital, where he was given fluids and told to rest.
"You would think that school would be the safest place to be... and here I found out that they forgot about our little boy," Ayala said.
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The bus driver has been fired. Officials with the transportation company and the Daniel Boone School District are apologizing for the mishap.
Parents were assured Thursday that protocol would be followed and new signs will be put on busses to make sure they are checked.
