Local mom still shaken up after son, 8, never got off school bus, was missing for hours

PITTSBURGH — A local mom tells Channel 11 she’s squeezing her son a little tighter after he didn’t get off the school bus Monday.

In fact, she didn’t know where he was for more than six hours.

She says her 8-year-old son gets off the school bus from Highlands Elementary every day at her home on Beacon Street in Natrona Heights. Monday, he didn’t.

“I’m very shaken up,” she said. “I started panting and texting and emailing and calling and no one ever got back to me.”

“I tried to turn on my location from my phone and contact his phone because I have it tracked and I was not able to do that,” she said.

Eventually, she says, she got a call from his aunt that he’d been found at a park in West Tarentum.

“All he said was he was roaming around. He was roaming. He ended up running into his aunt and cousins. That’s when he was returned home safe.”

She says he’d gotten on the wrong bus but didn’t know where he was or if he’d gotten on or off with anyone.

Channel 11 reached out to the Highlands School District but did not hear back.

The bus company, ABC Transit, is investigating.

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