A teenager from Fort Lauderdale, Florida is in critical condition in hospital after he was dragged and run over by a county bus on his way to school.
The 14 year old student was attempting to catch a Broward County transit bus in order to get to school on time when he was run over by the bus, said a spokesperson from the Broward Sheriff’s Office.
According to Broward County deputies, the middle school student was running to catch the bus as it was pulling out from the station at 1199 E. Sample Rd and approximately 9am on Friday morning. Brian Clark was sitting on board the bus, on the front seat. Clark became emotional as he described seeing the student put his arm into the open doorway of the bus. The doors then closed on his arm, as the bus driver started to pull off from the station. ‘The next thing I see is the child drop and felt the thump.’
The student was dragged for some meters with his arm stuck inside the bus door before wrenching his arm out and dropping to the ground, where the bus then ran over him. Clark immediately called 911 and ambulances arrived in a matter of minutes. The student was transported by emergency responders from the Pompano Beach Fire Rescue to the Chris Evert Children’s Hospital after paramedics struggled to stabilize him on the scene for more than 40 minutes. He is currently in a critical condition in the intensive care unit at the children’s hospital.
According to Clark’s testimony, he and other passengers on board the bus attempted to tell the bus driver to stop when they saw the boy trying to board the bus. ‘Everybody on the bus (was) screaming ‘Stop’ and he just ignored us’, Clark said about the bus driver, who continued to drive despite the screaming passengers.
A surveillance camera captured the seconds before the accident. The boy was running towards the bus, with footage then showing his mother running behind him as the accident unfolded in front of her eyes. “His mother saw everything,” said Clark.
The road was closed for an hour while the county bus was removed from the scene of the accident.
The bus driver, who has been identified as Reinaldo Soto, has been placed on administrative leave while deputies from the Broward Sheriff’s Office are conducting a thorough investigation into the incident.