A Petawawa, Ont., mother is seeking answers after her son was dropped off at school following his usual morning bus ride with injuries he received when he got his tongue stuck on the window and his cries for help went unheeded.
Four-year-old Lucas McDonald has a red welt on his right cheek and marks on his lips after he got his tongue and mouth stuck to the frozen window on the bus.
It’s unclear for how much of the half-hour bus ride Lucas was stuck. However, his mother says he sits directly behind the driver and was crying and pleading for help.
“He was crying and said he was asking for help and nobody would help him,” Alisha McDonald told CTV Ottawa.
“I’m like, ‘How could you not have heard him crying and asking for help? How can you not see him?’”
Lucas eventually managed to free himself from the window.
“There was blood on the window on the bus,” Lucas said.
Staff at Valour Elementary School in Petawawa called McDonald when Lucas arrived at school. She took her son to hospital to find out whether he suffered frostbite and if his skin will be permanently damaged.
Meanwhile, McDonald says that her son’s ordeal has her wondering how children are being treated on those long bus rides to school.
The Renfrew County District School Board referred media queries to the bus company. However, staff at Skelhorn Bus Lines Ltd., would not consent to an interview about the incident.
The board issued a brief statement, noting that staff acted appropriately when Lucas arrived at school.
“The RCDSB is deeply committed to the safety and wellbeing of its students,” the statement read.
That’s not good enough for Lucas’s parents, but they will still pursue an answer to the question of how he could get frostbite inside a warm, working bus on the way to school.
With a report from CTV Ottawa’s Eric Longley
