Girl, 6, wanders streets alone after falling asleep on school bus

Monday, April 17, 2006

Deborah Wrigley
More: Bio, News Team

By Deborah Wrigley

(4/17/06 - KTRK/HOUSTON) (KTRK) -- It was a scary morning for a six-year-old girl. She started on the right school bus, but it wasn't long before she was walking down the street lost and alone. The good news, it's a situation with a happy ending but one that clearly never should have happened.

It happens a lot at the start of the school year when young children haven't learned the routine of where to get off their school buses. In this case though, it appears the driver didn't check the bus before he got out. Now the school and even police want to know why.

Janeka Fulgham is an energetic six-year-old girl, but she was tired Monday afternoon. She did a lot of walking all by herself. Her journey began Monday morning when she fell asleep on her school bus and went undetected by the driver.

Janeka's mother Nguzi Fulgham explained, "She says she woke up and her sister wasn't on the bus, her friends weren't on the bus. So she opened the door and started walking and trying to find her way home."

The problem was Janeka didn't know where home was. So she traveled from Windsor Village Park where the bus stopped and the driver got out, making her way across South Post Oak and Fuqua and past a lot of traffic.

Janeka walked more than a mile down on Fuqua when a good Samaritan intervened. A woman picked Janeka up against her objections and took her to an HISD district office. Her mother was called and picked her up. But the fear of what might have been remains with her.

She said, "Somebody could have kidnapped her. She could be dead, hit by a car, anything."

Janeka and her sister attend Accelerated Intermediate Academy, a charter school not affiliated with HISD. The school pays Heights Transportation for bus service and is investigating the incident. The family has filed a report with Houston police. Heights Transportation hasn't returned our calls.

Mrs. Fulgham wants to take her children out of the charter school and enroll them at a school only two blocks from home. That way she can walk them personally to and from campus.
(Copyright © 2006, KTRK-TV)

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