A shocking and heartbreaking loss one year ago that Landon Goff's loved ones insist was preventable.
The disabled teen choked on his way to school and then died days later. Now, his parents are taking the school bus company to court.
“I just thought everything was normal. I just said goodbye to Landon. Watched him go up the lift and that was the last time I seen him," his dad, Aaron Kizer-Goff, said.
Landon's parents and their attorneys say his final trip on a school bus began as usual, but somewhere along the 40-minute ride to his special services school on December 1 of 2022 the 15-year-old, who used a wheelchair, choked on his own saliva and became unconscious.
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They say that neither the bus driver nor a substitute bus aide on board alerted anyone.
The 10th grader from Galloway Township died in a hospital three days later.
“Bus drivers, bus aides in the state of New Jersey are obligated to be trained in a fashion that they can respond and appropriately act when a situation comes up on a bus," the family's lawyer, Stephen Van Natten, said.
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Landon had a rare neurological and developmental disorder called Rett Syndrome.
In a complaint filed this week, his parents Jennifer Spahr and Aaron Kizer-Goff are suing Sheppard Bus Service.
“The bus driver and aide were clearly negligently trained and had it not been for Sheppard’s negligence, Landon would be with us today," the family's lawyer Alexa D'Amato Barrera told NBC10.
The family's lawyers say there were only three other students on the bus that day.
According to the lawsuit, the bus was equipped with a video and audio recording system but it was not working.
NBC10 reached out to Sheppard Bus Service. A supervisor directed us to the company's attorney. An email to that lawyer and a phone message were not returned yet.
The family is seeking unspecified damages.
"We don't ever want another family to go through what we're going through and another child to lose their life," Landon's mom Jennifer said.
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