NewsWest 9
ANDREWS - Zereniti is a happy and healthy four-year-old girl, but earlier on Wednesday, she was drenched in sweat after spending four hours trapped on a school bus.
"She was drenched in sweat, like if somebody just threw her in the shower and out," her mother, Monica Pena, said.
Her mother says she went to the preschool to pick her up at three in the afternoon, like she does everyday, but when she arrived, she noticed her daughter's name was crossed off.
"Who got her? Where is she at? You know, just the simple mom questions of where's my kid at," Pena said.
After several calls were made, someone at the bus barn found the girl on the bus sleeping. According to her parents, that means she was on the bus from 11:30 a.m. until 3:30 p.m., the hottest part of the day.
"I mean, four hours, that's really unnecessary. Something else bad could have happened," Pena said.
Her mother, a nurse herself, took her to the emergency room as a precaution, and luckily she is doing just fine. Now the family is trying to put all the pieces together to find out what happened. They even filed a police report.
"They didn't have anything from Clearfork because they put her on the bus. They went ahead and did a head count, they did everything. So from the one minute drive it is from Clearfork to Headstart, they missed her," Pena said.
NewsWest 9 contacted the school district for a comment and were referred to the superintendent. Our calls have not yet been returned. However, Zereniti's father received a call from school officials right before our interview, he says they told him that they are still investigating.
"Just that there's procedures that haven't been followed. I mean, they're still doing their investigation to check up on everything and they're going to call me and let me know what the results are and let me know what they find out about everything," Joshua Sears said.
Zereniti was too shy to talk to us on camera but one thing is for sure--this family is happy she is alive.
"I'm thankful to God that she's still here," Pena said.
"I can only imagine if something happened to her," Sears said.
