By Tonya Brown
Thursday, November 05, 2009 at 7:13 p.m.
Read more: Local, Parent, Darlington, Bus, Accident, School, District, County, Protocol
A Darlington County parent is outraged with school district officials. The mother says they didn't notify her about her son's school bus getting hit by an 18-wheeler. She says her son was injured in the accident.
Robin Moore tells NewsChannel 15 she found out when her 11-year-old son got home and was in pain. She said she can't understand why a simple phone call wasn't placed to her about the incident.
Moore has been at her son's side for the last two days. The school bus 11-year-old, Joshua Hasselriis was riding on Tuesday morning was hit by an 18-wheeler on Main Street in Darlington.
"I just heard a big boom sound and it was really weird," Joshua Hasselriis said. The bus was heading to Brunson Dargon Elementary school, where Joshua is a fifth grader.
School district officials say it was a minor accident and EMS checked out the students and everyone appeared fine. So they were sent to school on another bus.
Robin Moore said, " I'm outraged." Robin had no idea what happened until Joshua came home from school. "He said I really didn't have a good day. This 18-wheeler hit the bus. I said you were in an accident?" Robin Moore added.
When Joshua complained that his neck and arm were hurting, she took him to the hospital. Now she wants to know why school officials didn't notify her."Their responsible for our children, so it's just common knowledge to follow procedure."
We asked school officials that question. The public information officer for Darlington County schools, Audrey Childers, tells NewsChannel 15 their procedure is to always notify parents, when their child's school bus is involved in an accident. Childers pointed out EMS was called to the accident to check on the children.
In this case, Childers says there was apparently a breakdown in communications, and they're doing an internal investigation to see where that breakdown came from to improve the system.
Officials say parents were notified about the accident Thursday.
In the meantime, Robin Moore says she is asking that her son be transferred to another school.
