The family of an 8-year-old boy who was severely injured by a Boston Public Schools bus driver who lost control of his vehicle and struck him outside a school is suing Boston’s transportation contractor Transdev for gross negligence and systemic safety failures, according to a complaint filed Tuesday in Suffolk Superior Court.
The crash, which occurred in December outside the Curley K-8 Lower School in Jamaica Plain, echoes the horrific incident several weeks ago in Hyde Park, when a 5-year-old was run over and killed by a bus driver. The lawsuit also comes as Boston officials have launched an investigation of Transdev, which has faced more than a dozen personal injury claims in Boston over the last decade.
Video of the Jamaica Plain crash shows the driver of the school bus asleep at the wheel just moments before abruptly waking and starting the bus during dismissal, when large numbers of students and staff were outside the Curley school. Almost immediately, the bus swerved onto the sidewalk and hit the boy and a school aide, according to videos of the incident.
The 8-year-old boy, who has a diagnosis of autism, suffered a fractured femur that required several surgeries and two months in a hospital and rehabilitation center, according to the complaint.
“This frightening event almost took my child’s life. It is shocking to read the string of lies that the driver gave to the police. This should never happen. The videos don’t lie,” Cynthia Davis, the boy’s guardian, who has raised him for most of his life, said in a statement. “Transdev must be held to account to protect our children and prevent this from ever happening again.”
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The school aide with the boy suffered injuries to his left leg and left shoulder, and a laceration behind his left ear, according to police.
The lawsuit comes just weeks after Mayor Michelle Wu and Superintendent Mary Skipper announced an independent investigation of Transdev, which has provided school bus drivers to Boston since 2013. On April 28, 5-year-old Lens Arthur Joseph, a kindergartner at UP Academy Dorchester, was struck and killed by a school bus that he had just exited on Washington Street in Hyde Park.
The driver, Jean Charles, reportedly struck two cars in Mattapan shortly before he allegedly hit Joseph in Hyde Park. He resigned on May 14, shortly before a scheduled termination hearing. He not been charged in the Hyde Park crash.
After that crash, community members complained to city leaders at a public meeting about school buses that speed, hit cars, and drive unsafely through the neighborhood.
Boston officials have said there are about 400 “incidents” per year involving a BPS school bus. Most cause minimal damage, they have said.
According to the lawsuit filed Tuesday against Transdev, both the driver, Vitony Laguerre, 62, of Taunton, and a monitor on board were asleep while the bus was parked outside the school just before the crash occurred.
Laguerre, Transdev, and BPS did not respond to a request for comment.
The school aide injured in the crash also did not respond to an interview request.
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Wu on Tuesday said the city is working closely with Transdev and has put in place additional checks and is reviewing every incident.
“But for the families who are grieving or for a family who has had to go through a horrible recovery over an extended period of time, that never should have happened,” Wu said. “And we need to make sure things like that don’t happen.”
In the video released by the family’s lawyers, Laguerre appeared to be napping for at least 45 seconds before suddenly lurching up in his seat. He immediately started driving the bus along a side street, Pershing Road, and lost control. The bus drove up onto the sidewalk. The exterior camera captured the precise moment the student and the school aide were caught between the bumper and a wooden fence.
According to a police report, the boy was run over by the bus, while the aide was pinned to the fence behind him. Briefly, the aide could be seen trying to shield the boy before they disappeared behind the nose of the bus.
The bus then plowed through the fence and came to a stop on school property.
Laguerre is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit filed Tuesday.
Lawyers for the family of the injured boy also released video recordings of the crash that show Laguerre appearing “to smile and laugh about the accident and shrugs his shoulders as if he was unsure of what happened,” according to a police report.
Laguerre gave different explanations about the cause of the crash, according to Boston police reports included with the complaint. Initially, he told officers at the scene that a vehicle had cut in front of him and he was forced to swerve out of the way, but mistakenly hit the gas pedal.
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Laguerre subsequently told police he was waiting on the street with the brake activated when he began to move forward, and his foot hit the wrong pedal, according to a supplemental police report written 10 days after the crash. The bus accelerated onto the sidewalk and struck the boy and the school aide, that report said.
A few days after the crash, Laguerre then told police the accident occurred because of a mechanical issue with the steering.
But video of the crash, from a dashcam that recorded the bus’s interior, along with an exterior camera that looked out over the vehicle’s hood, showed there was no other car cutting in front of the bus. And police determined that any mechanical problem with the bus was caused by the crash itself, according to the police report.
The child “suffered great pain of body and anguish of mind, significant medical expenses have been incurred and will be incurred for his care and treatment, and he has suffered and will suffer a substantial loss of his ability to engage in the normal enjoyment of life,” the complaint said.
City and school officials did not respond to questions about whether Laguerre is still employed as a driver.
He was arraigned on May 7 on a misdemeanor charge of negligent operation of a motor vehicle in West Roxbury District Court, according to court filings. He was also charged with unsafe operation of a motor vehicle, which is a civil infraction. Laguerre pleaded not guilty to the charges and was released on personal recognizance. He is is due in court for a pretrial hearing on June 24.
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In a statement, Marc Breakstone, one of the lawyers representing the injured child’s family, said Transdev has a systemic safety problem.
“When you’re a multi-billion-dollar international company getting paid millions of dollars a year to keep the children of Boston safe, you must be held accountable,” Breakstone said. “This is obviously not the first time that Transdev has hurt innocent people, but we are working to make sure it does not happen again.”
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