Settlement Reached After Bus Driver Drags Little Girl In Horrifying Video
Terrifying footage has turned up of a six-year-old elementary school student being dragged for over an alleged 1,100 feet after she exits her school bus. Although the incident took place in 2015, the footage has recently surfaced and has since gone viral on social media after the video was released upon the expectation that it be used in the civil trial unfolding this week.
The trial continued this week after a lawsuit was filed by the child’s mother, Amy Ehman. Ehman filed the lawsuit against Kentucky’s Jefferson County Public School System and the school bus driver, Melinda Sanders. Following Ehman’s testimony of the traumatizing event and the release of the heartbreaking video, both the school system, Sanders, and Ehman have agreed to a settlement.
The mother of the then six-year-old child testified during the trial on Monday. Ehman, who also worked for the school system as a bus driver, explained that she had heard a call over her bus radio about an incident involving her daughter’s bus. Ehman says that after the radio cut off, she checked her phone. “I had several missed messages and calls and the preview message said, ‘They’re dragging your baby down the street,’” Ehman explained.
Ehman then goes on to explain that she called the bus compound. Ehman relays, “I asked her, ‘Is Allie alive?’ And she said, ‘Yes,’” Ehman said. “I said, ‘Is she going to be OK?’ She said, ‘I don’t know.’”
Ehman adds that she rushed to the hospital after she stopped her route at a bus compound where a friend gave her a ride to the hospital. “I got out of the car and they took me straight back to Allie, in a dark room,” Ehman shared with the court. “She was laying there in a neck brace, she was bandaged up, she was really shaken up.”
In her lawsuit, Ehamn alleges that her daughter’s bus driver, Sanders, had a history of violating safety protocol. In the video, Sanders can be seen failing to stop for a stop sign. In another frame, a student at the front of the bus can be seen standing up when protocol explains that all students on the bus should be seated when the bus is in motion.
Attorneys at trial argued that the now 13-year-old child is still battling with scars after the incident. Her attorneys argued that Ehman’s daughter suffers from extensive nerve damage along with severe PTSD following the traumatizing experience. Along with that, Ehman’s daughter deals with the emotional toll of being unable to wear jeans because of the material rubbing along her skin and that she cannot wear shorts or skirts because of the visible scarring.
Her attorneys further argue that Ehmans’s daughter was designated as a child with special needs and that certain protocol that was in place for a student, including being placed on an appropriate bus route, was not followed.
Sanders also testified in court and pleaded her regret. According to local news outlet WPSD, at one point Sanders shared, "It means a lot to me, and I wish...that I had followed that, that day. I can't take that day back."
The settlement took place early Tuesday morning right before the jury began its deliberations. Although the settlement reached between the parties has been undisclosed, the school district will not be able to appeal the amount paid after the settlement. During the trial, Ehman shared, “I want the punitive damages to be adequate to where it hurts other people as much as they’ve hurt my daughter. And I don’t want any other kid to ever go through what my child has gone through. I don’t want there to be any other Allie’s.”
