VAN WERT, Ohio Van Wert police have charged a bus driver with leaving a 36-year-old disabled woman on a school bus last week for an extended time.
Gerald E. Miller, 53, of Van Wert, faces one count of patient endangerment, a first-degree misdemeanor. He is to be arraigned Monday in Van Wert Municipal Court.
The woman was traveling to classes at the Van Wert County Board of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Thomas Edison Center, police said. Mr. Miller is accused of not making sure the woman got off the bus before he left it unattended in the school s parking lot, the police said.
He had picked up the woman before 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, and she is believed to have remained on the bus until about 2 p.m., when she was taken home during the normal afternoon bus route, police said.
Relatives discovered the incident after they called the school inquiring why she had not been given her medicine that day.