One second, Derek Tappen’s five-year-old son William was getting off a school bus and the next, he was pinned by the closing doors, his legs dragging.
“He got both feet on the ground and the bus doors closed on him, pinning him to the bottom step, and he was being dragged the length of the school bus,” Tappen said.
Tappen said William’s injuries as a result — scrapes and bruises — were mostly to his legs.
He said he was grateful they held the doors for his son, who attends kindergarten.
“He could go down and then get hit by the back wheels,” Tappen said.
The incident happened outside Tappen’s home on Nov. 1 in Mount Pleasant, Ont., a small community about 10 kilometers south of Brantford.
Tappen was waiting for William and his older brother to come home from school. His home surveillance camera caught the moment on video.
The video, time-stamped at 3:28 p.m., shows a man approaching a school bus on the street. A child gets off the bus. A second child is seen almost getting off, but appears to remain stuck to the doors as the bus moves forward for a few seconds, forcing the man to run after him.
“I started screaming for the bus to stop. Thank God some of the windows opened because I don’t think the driver would have heard me,” she said, adding that other children on the bus heard Tappen screaming and alerted the driver. .
WARNING | This video may be disturbing:
5-year-old carjacks school bus in Brantford, Ont.
It happened in the blink of an eye. One second Derek Tappen’s 5-year-old son William was getting off the school bus and the next he was being pulled back onto the bus by his backpack and dragged down the street. Brant County Ontario Provincial Police say they are investigating the incident but “cannot comment on charges at this time.” CBC Hamilton has reached out to Voyago, which owns the Voyageur bus the boy was on, multiple times for comment, including whether the driver or the bus is being investigated. The company declined to speak to the media.
The ‘unacceptable’ incident: bus safety advocate
CBC Hamilton showed the video to Nancy Daigneault, executive director of School Bus Ontario, a non-profit organization that promotes school bus safety. He was unaware of the incident until CBC asked the organization for comment. “It’s an unacceptable, horrific incident,” Daigneault said after reviewing the video. “We couldn’t be more sorry for what happened in this case.” Daigneault said safety training is the responsibility of individual bus lines and added that watching the video prompted her organization to send a reminder to School Bus Ontario members about the importance of passenger safety. William Tappen, right, and his older brother Jan, left, were getting off their school bus on Nov. 1 when the doors slammed shut on William’s backpack. William has been too scared to drive the bus ever since, his dad says. (Submitted by Derek Tappen) Daigneault said it is the bus driver’s responsibility to make sure students are safely off the bus and off the road before continuing to drive. School buses are equipped with convex mirrors on both sides of the bus, Daigneault said, and drivers are supposed to use them to look around the perimeter of the bus for children. “School bus drivers are generally taught to make sure children are properly off the bus and are away from the bus before driving again.”
The bus was in working order, the school board says
Tappen said the incident left William with “more emotional damage than anything.” He said his son has been unable to drive a school bus since the incident and has since been driven to school. “He’s afraid of doors and he knows they don’t exist [safety measures] in his seat to prevent that from happening, so he doesn’t even want to try to get on the bus.” Dave Smouter, director of communications with the Grand Erie Area School Board, said the board was aware of the incident and is sharing the example “with appropriate agencies” to raise awareness. The school board also referred the incident to the bus manufacturing committee of the CSA Group, formerly known as the Canadian Standards Association, for further review, but has not heard back, Smouter said. Smouter said the board was told the bus involved was serviced by a mechanic and was in perfect condition at the time of the incident. He said he does not know if the driver has faced any repercussions because the driver is not employed by the board. Tappen said he wants other parents to know this can happen to their children. “It’s not like an elevator where you can put your hand in and it opens again,” he said, referring to the bus door. “There’s nothing to stop a bag, a coat, a hood, anything from getting caught in those doors, and once they’re closed, they’re closed.”
