Victorian Toddler Left On Daycare Bus For Up To 5 Hours

On Friday, the 10th of March, a three-year-old girl was left on a daycare bus in Victoria for up to five hours. After being put on the bus outside of her home to attend the service, her parents received a call at 3 pm and allegedly told an Educator discovered the young toddler still on the bus in the afternoon. 

According to Yahoo 7 News, On Friday at around 9:15 a.m., Alyza's father Braiden put her onto the bus outside of their Shepparton residence and was driven to Lulla's Children and Family Center. At 3 o'clock, the family received a call informing them that the toddler had been brought by ambulance to the hospital. They apparently heard that she was found remaining on the bus in the afternoon by a staff member. 

"When they pulled her out of the kindy bus they stripped her off and put her in the shower," mother Skye Seadon told 9 News. "She still would have been strapped into the car seat.

The mother said that her daughter was dehydrated when she arrived at Goulburn Valley Hospital with a temperature of about 38.4 degrees. She was held overnight at the hospital.

Ms Seadon expressed her anger about the situation in a Facebook post on the weekend.

“I’m so f***ing sad for my daughter..Imagine what she was feeling and screaming out for no one to come to help her!!,” she said on Facebook. “Feeling so f**ing helpless, it makes me so sad to think a daycare centre can just leave a kid in a bus.”

The director of the daycare has now been in touch with the family, but they are still perplexed as to how such a thing could happen.

How do you forget that?" Ms Seadon told 9 News. "I know there's a clipboard there and I'm pretty sure the kids do get marked off when they get picked up."

As per Yahoo News Australia, reports a spokeswoman said that they responded to a report of a child being left on a vehicle on Edward Street, Shepparton on March 10.

"The child was taken to the hospital for observation. The investigation is ongoing," they said. According to Alyza's parents, she has been struggling a bit with sleep since the incident but is otherwise okay 9 News reports.

From 01 March 2023, ACECQA added new regulatory requirements on transporting children to and from the service. which includes mandatory notifying the regulatory authority that your service provides or arranges regular transportation, the service to account for all children as they embark and disembark at the service premises and keeping a record of how each child was accounted for and more.

As per our report, in the last 5 years (from June 2022), in the last five years, at least 68 children have been left on buses in Australia, a rate of more than once per month.

Further Reading

New Transportation Requirements For Centre-Based Services In Effect As Of Today 
68 Children Have Been Left On A Bus Across Australia Over The Past 5 Years

Reference
Aussie toddler hospitalised after being left on daycare bus 'for five hours', Yahoo News Australia, 13th March