Five-year-old boy rings doorbell for help after school bus makes wrong stop
A frightened five-year-old boy was forced to ring a stranger's doorbell for help after his school bus let him off at the wrong stop.
Mum Kelly Mullholland, from Oklahoma, took to TikTok to share the heartbreaking footage of her son after the incident took place earlier this week.
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In the clip, the young boy could be seen getting emotional as he pressed the Ring video doorbell and asked: "Could you help my find my mommy?"
Kelly shared the footage alongside a video of herself in which she said she'd experienced her 'literal worst nightmare' when she went to pick her young son up off the bus and realised he wasn't there.
The mum, who is pregnant, claimed her son had been riding the bus with her boyfriend's daughter, who is also five-years-old, but neither of the children got off the bus when it finally arrived at her stop one hour late.
The mum could forgive the lateness of the bus, noting it was the first week of school and 'sh*t happens', but she couldn't overlook the fact her child was not where he was supposed to be.
Kelly recalled going in to 'full panic mode' when the bus driver wasn't able to tell her where the two children had got off, and she claimed she had to rely on older students on the bus to inform her that they'd got off at 'the last stop'.
According to Kelly, the bus driver hadn't 'followed procedure' and had failed to check tags attached to the children's backpacks which let them know which stop they were supposed to get off at. Drivers are also not supposed to let young children off the bus without an adult present.
The bus driver allegedly hadn't been able to tell Kelly the name of the street for the previous stop, so she quickly went to grab her phone to call her boyfriend and explain the situation.
As she was doing so, a car pulled up and a man inside told Kelly that two children had been ringing his video doorbell and trying to talk to him. Kelly quickly went to the man's house, but by the time she got there the kids had already gone.
The man and a few other neighbours in the area got together to help Kelly try and track down the children, and thankfully they managed to find them a few houses down from where they'd rung the doorbell, and more than half a mile from their home.
Kelly pointed out the children had been wandering around in temperatures as high as 40°C (105°F) for about an hour after they were dropped off.
The school bus operated separately from the school, and Kelly has assured that her son's school was not at fault for the incident.
The family reported the situation to the Department of Transportation, and Kelly said that while she was told 'actions were going to be taken' against the driver involved, she's not sure whether he was fired from his position.
TikTok users have expressed their shock over the incident after Kelly shared her story, with many praising her son for his efforts to try and find help after getting lost.
Emily Brown