Cops: Bus Driver Asked Child to Move Downed Power Line

The 11-year-old was burned
By Michael Harthorne,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 26, 2016 4:39 PM CDT
Cops: Bus Driver Asked Child to Move Downed Power Line
   (Shutterstock)

A Pennsylvania school bus driver is facing multiple charges after allegedly asking an 11-year-old student to move a downed electrical wire earlier this month, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports. On April 15, a goose flew into a transformer, bringing down electrical lines and trapping the bus. Authorities say the driver, 60-year-old Patricia Ryan, asked if one of the five students onboard would get out and move a power line off the bus. The 11-year-old, identified by WTAE as Tyler Cunningham, volunteered. But when he grabbed the power line, it burned his hand. "It shocked me," he says. "It got me like right there, on the thumb."

Tyler got back on the bus, and Ryan asked him multiple times if he was OK. But when authorities arrived to free the bus, Ryan allegedly kept mum on the student's injury. The school district later learned of the incident. which was caught on security video and by the bus's radio, from the other students who had been onboard. The school removed Ryan as a bus driver, and she has since been charged with endangering the welfare of a child and reckless endangerment. Tyler's parents want her license taken away, as well, the New York Daily News reports. "I never intended to hurt anyone," Ryan tells the Tribune-Review. (More school bus stories.)

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