Missing Disabled Man Found Locked On Bus

[RaVen Blackehart]

BROOKLYN (CBS)

A 22-year-old man with cerebral palsy who was missing since Wednesday afternoon has been found alive. He spent the entire night locked on a bus in freezing temperatures.

Edwin Rivera was taken to Brookdale Hospital today and is in stable condition.

Edwin, who didn't return home after participating in a special needs program, was found by his father and an emergency medical service team in a Brownsvile bus yard.

He was still on the bus that was supposed to bring him home. Instead he spent the night in sub-zero temperatures.

"I'm so relieved and I'm so mad at the bus company for leaving him. He's not a kid. He's almost 6'2" how do you miss him?" Leslie Rivera, Edwin's mother, said.

After the family got over their initial excitment, calls had to be placed to police and others to tell them the search was over.

Brooklyn police searched the bus company lot Wednesday night and didn't find him. Today, Rivera's father went to the lot, along with Manhattan police officers and found him, 19 hours after he disappeared.

Police will question the bus driver and the matron Wednesday afternoon. Criminal charges could be

http://wcbstv.com/topstories/missing.cerebral.palsy.2.898300.html

[Rockin Ma]

I can never get how anyone is left on a bus, child or as it is in this case.

[Peeperann]

If it is a bus for disabled people only, they are required to do sweeps of the bus before it is locked up for the night. How the hell can you not see a 6 foot plus man???

That driver needs to be drug tested and fired and possibly jailed!!

[RaVen Blackehart]

By JENNIFER PELTZ

Edwin Rivera, a severely disabled 22-year-old, was supposed to be escorted home from his special-needs school.

Instead, authorities said Friday, a matron eager to get to an appointment knowingly stranded him on a bus where he spent an icy New Year's night alone. He was found, curled up and rocking, after more than 17 hours parked in a Brooklyn bus yard.

The matron, Linda Hockaday, was charged with reckless endangerment and fired.

"There's no excuse for it," said Peter R. Silverman, a lawyer for Outstanding Transport Inc., a company that specializes in transporting the disabled. "It's just inconceivable."

Hockaday, 51, did not enter a plea at her arraignment Friday; her bond was set at $2,500. Her lawyer, Candace Kurtz, said Hockaday has no criminal record.

A telephone number for Rivera's family rang unanswered Friday. One of his sisters, Khristine, told reporters Thursday the episode amounted to "negligence and stupidity."

"Just because he is the way he is doesn't mean he's less of a person," she said. "He just needs extra help."

Rivera's parents reported him missing after he didn't return from his school Wednesday evening.

Their 6-foot-2 son, who has cerebral palsy and is unable to communicate verbally, still had his seatbelt on when he was found, police said. His body temperature had dropped about three degrees during a night when the outside temperature ranged from 15 to 30 degrees, according to the criminal complaint.

He was in stable condition Friday at Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center.

Hockaday told police she knew Rivera hadn't been dropped off and was asleep on the bus when she got off, the complaint said. But she didn't tell the driver because she was headed for an appointment and didn't want to go back to Rivera's East Harlem home, according to the complaint.

Her lawyer suggested the blame shouldn't fall only on Hockaday.

"If, in fact, what they say is true - and it's a big if - there's a driver on that bus who, I would think, would be a kind of double-checking system," Kurtz said.

The bus company's attorney said drivers rely on matrons, or escorts, to make sure all the passengers have gotten off, and the escorts are held responsible. They get monthly training emphasizing that duty, Silverman said.

Hockaday, who had worked for the company for about a year and a half, was fired Thursday, he said.

If convicted, she could face up to seven years in prison.

http://www.buffalonews.com/260/story/538621.html


I hope she gets convicted and serves every day of the longest sentence.

[Castille]

Christ, I'd be less annoyed with her if she'd just taken him along on her appoinment and dropped him at home later that evening.

[Jaded]

http://i40.tinypic.com/aoovuv.jpg

A bus matron was fired and jailed Friday on charges of stranding a severely disabled man aboard a freezing bus in a rush to see the "Christian Liberace" perform at a New Year's Eve church service.

Linda Hockaday, 51, knew cerebral palsy sufferer Ed Wynn Rivera was asleep in the rear of the bus on Dec. 31 - but she was hellbent on getting to church, authorities said.

Hockaday's former boss at Outstanding Transport in Brooklyn wasted no time Friday in throwing her under the bus.

"She deserves whatever she gets," fumed Charles Curcio after firing his employee of 18 months. "I would not take her back. It's a disgrace."

Curcio said Hockaday claimed "she was in a rush to go somewhere, and felt we would find the client and take him home."

Hockaday of Brooklyn left Rivera in the deep freeze to attend an 8 p.m. New Year's Eve service at the Christian Cultural Center, authorities said.

The event was headlined by Dino, a flamboyant pianist known as "the Christian Liberace" - and started about 15 minutes late.

Hockaday was jailed after she failed to post $5,000 bond. Her next court date is Wednesday. She was charged with two counts of felony reckless endangerment, which carries up to seven years in jail.

Hockaday, in a black ski jacket and jeans, stood silently at the bail hearing. She removed her glasses to wipe her eyes at one point as her lawyer tried to shift blame to the bus driver.

"Yes, she has responsibility for this young person," lawyer Candace Kurtz said. "But the backup system is the driver, who did nothing."

Curcio disputed Kurtz's description, insisting that clearing the bus was the sole work of the matron.

"That was her responsibility," he said. "That is what she is here for. She knowingly saw the client on the bus, sleeping in the back."

No charges were filed against the driver or anyone else in the incident. And none was expected, said bus company lawyer Peter Silverman.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/01/02/2009-01-02_matron_fired_for_leaving_mentally_disabl.html

[Castille]

I thought it would at least be an *important* appointment! Like her parole officer, a specialist Dr. it took months to get in to see for a condition she has, a monthy visitation she has with her kids in foster care, an award ceremony with the mayor. *Something* where the consequences of being late or missing it would be be significant. But a music show at church that it was only inconvenient to be late for? Hey, Jesus didn't want you there, bitch.

[crickett]

Nice. I'm sure God did not want ther to abandon a helpless person on a bus to freeze to death. What a hypocrite!