TEXAS -- A private school bus driver has been arrested and charged with child endangerment after leaving a 9-year-old boy on a bus.
The boy fell asleep on the bus Wednesday morning. Driver Simona Charez Alcaide, 52, apparently didn’t notice he was still there and she parked the bus in a northwest Houston lot and left.
The boy woke up shortly after noon. He got off the bus and came face to face with an angry pit bull.
Witnesses saw the guard dog lunge toward the boy and grab him by his backpack.
Workers at a nearby sign shop were having lunch across the street when they heard the child screaming.
"He was calling for his mom, like, ‘Mom, Mom, somebody help me!' " said Damian Garcia. "The dog was shaking the kid in the air, about two or three times in the air."
Garcia, his brother, Juan, and other Good Samaritans threw food at the pit bull to distract it. They then cupped their hands so the boy could step up and over the tall, gated wrought iron fence.
"We sat him down and gave him a bottle of water and I said, 'Are you okay?' He was shaking and I am too," said Mary Martin, who comforted the boy after the ordeal as they waited for police and paramedics to arrive.
The child was taken to Northwest Memorial Herman and was treated and released for cuts and scratches. He had no bite marks, according to Houston Police.
(KMOV - Oct 12, 2012)
