Amer Salem
Okaz / Saudi Gazette
JEDDAH — Nobody has noticed that the KG 3 student Abdul Malik Al-Awad was fast asleep when the bus arrived at the school on Monday morning. All the students disembarked when they reached their international private school in Jeddah except him.
The bus driver did not notice that the student was still on his seat when he drove the bus to the parking place where it remaimed until the end of the school hours in the afternoon.
When the driver was getting ready to take the students back to their homes he noticed that the student was still on his seat but it was too late. He was already lifeless.
Yahya Al-Awad, the student uncle, held the school responsible for the tragic death of his nephew. He said Abdul Malik was not suffering from any illness or health issues when he went to his school in the morning.
He said when the student was late coming home, his parents got worried. "His father called the school several times but there was no response," he said.
The uncle said at a later time the school called to tell the father and the mother that their son was ill.
"When the parents arrived at the school in Rihab district, they were in for a devastating tragedy. Their son had died in his school bus," he said.
The uncle said his brother, the student's father, became hysteric when he was told about the death of his son and started convulsing.
Al-Awad asked why the school bus did not have a supervisor to make sure that all the students have embarked in the morning and have disembarked in the afternoon on reaching home?
He also said the school should have called the parents to enquire about the absence of their son or to ask why he did not come to the school on this day.
"The school would have discovered that the student was still in bus and his life might have been saved," he added.
Abdullah Al-Thaqafi, director of the department of education in Jeddah, instructed an immediate investigation of the case and asked to be supplied with a quick report so as to take the appropriate decision.
Abdul Majeed Al-Ghamdi, spokesman of the department, said the bus in which the student died belonged to a private transport company which the school had contracted to transport the students..
A spokesman of Jeddah Police said the case file was handed over to the northern police district to further investigate the incident.
