A 7-year-old Queens kid who should have been enjoying art class found himself locked in a parked school bus yesterday – recklessly abandoned by the driver who failed to spot him asleep in the middle row, police said.
Dawin Duran was terrified when he awoke to see the driver Gilberto Sosa, 47, step off the bus at Yellowstone Boulevard and 62nd Street in Rego Park and lock him in.
“I woke up, then I saw the driver leave,” the PS 14 second-grader recalled of his 25-minute ordeal a mile from home. “I tried to call him, but he closed the door.
“I started banging on the door and a lady saw me and called the police. I was crying. I was very nervous and scared,” Dawin said as he sat with his relieved parents at home.
When police arrived at the scene, they called Sosa’s bosses at the Martinez Bus Service, who unlocked the door and freed the panicked youngster.
Sosa and bus matron Miladys Altagracia Pena, 62, turned themselves in at the 112th Precinct station house and were booked for endangering the welfare of a child. Both were released without bail at their arraignments last night. The day began routinely, with Dawin boarding the bus at 7:32 a.m. in front of his home.
At some point during the mile-long ride, he fell asleep. When the bus arrived at PS 14, Pena got off and never checked the vehicle, police said.
Sosa then parked the bus a half-mile away at 8:10 a.m., also never checking for stray students, police said. Dawin’s stepdad, cabdriver Orlando Rivera, was furious.
“This is very irresponsible. When you have kids on a bus, you have a big responsibility. You have to take care of them,” he said. “We never leave Dawin in the car by himself. Even when he’s home, we never leave him alone.
“We want them to be more careful, because kids are the future.”
Dawin’s mom, Danny Taveras Rivera, 35, a laid-off saleswoman, was equally angry.
“Before they leave, they ought to check the bus. Two [adult] people on the bus and I don’t understand why nobody saw Dawin,” she said.
“This is the love of my life. I don’t know what would have happened if I lost him.”
Additional reporting by Jamie Schram and Beth Stebner