COLERAIN TOWNSHIP, Ohio -- An unfortunate collision of firsts -- a bus driver on her first day of work and a pair of twins on their first day of kindergarten -- left a 5-year-old boy stranded blocks from his home Friday afternoon while his mother feared the worst.
According to Paige Nieves, her twin sons, Jayce and Fabian, sat separately on their first-ever school bus ride home from kindergarten. When Jayce raised his hand and told the driver she had reached his stop, she didn't know him well enough to realize she hadn't. Instead, she allowed him to get off the bus alone.
Nieves had been waiting at their actual bus stop to record a video of her boys arriving home from their first day of school, but her excitement fizzled when only one boy stepped off the bus at home.
"I didn't even know what to think, I didn't know how to feel," she said. "I didn't know if my kid had been hit by a car, if he was crossing streets alone … I was freaking out."
She hopped in her own car to check for Jayce at Monfort Heights Elementary School and found nothing.
After an hour of searching, she returned home, still panicking, and found him crying on the front step. He'd been dropped off just a few blocks away, but his family had been away searching for him by the time he walked to his house.
"I'm furious," Nieves said. "He's terrified to get on a bus again."
Northwest Local Schools confirmed Neives' story and said the bus driver who dropped Jayce off would receive a disciplinary review of proper procedures.
Additionally, Nieves said school officials had assured her they would make sure her sons sat together on bus rides from that point on.
