Mom speaks out after 10-year-old with special needs violently bitten on school bus
A Wisconsin couple is speaking out after their 10-year-old daughter who has special needs was violently bitten on her way home from school.
Lynn Waldron-Moehle told WBAY that her child, Lillian Waldron, a student at Langlade Elementary School who is nonverbal and has developmental delays, got off her all-special-needs school bus Monday in hysterics while holding her arm.
Her mother says she attempted to calm the child down with a bath when she noticed "major bruising on her upper arm."
Waldron-Moehle told the station that school officials were able to review footage of her daughter's bus ride home provided by Lamers Bus Lines, which owns and operates Lillian's school bus. The surveillance video allegedly depicts another female student "brutally biting" her daughter's arm.
"(The principal) said it was gruesome and horrifying to look at," the outraged mother said.
Chad Waldron, Lillian's father, told WBAY that his daughter sits directly behind the school bus driver and questioned why no one tried to stop the other child from attacking her.
"The seat was right behind the bus driver and he couldn't hear anything going on or see anything?" he said. "Come on."
Lamers Bus Lines confirmed to the station that its bus drivers are allowed to intervene in if an altercation occurs.
Both of the victim's parents believe the incident could have been avoided had a chaperone been watching over the children.
"If you can't keep an eye on these kids and they are special needs, you need to bring somebody in you know to be watching if the bus driver can't do it," Chad Waldron said.
"I would like to see this not ever happen to another child," Lynn Waldron-Moehle added. "No other child needs to go through what Lilly went through."
"She can't tell them to stop, she couldn't get away, because she's in a five-point harness car seat," the girl's mother continued. "She just had to sit there and take it and the bus driver wasn't stopping."
The school district says it is investigating the incident and that the student accused of biting Lillian is no longer attending Langlade Elementary.