Dog left for dead by school bus
Video of a dog run over by a school bus was captured by a student on the bus
(CNS): Animal lovers have been left reeling by a video circulating across social media showing a dog left for dead in the middle of the road after being hit by a school bus. The incident was caught on video by a Clifton Hunter High School student. On the short video clip (see below), a shocked student can be heard saying, “He literally just ran over the dog. Oh, my God!” Text running across the video states the bus driver looked at the dog and then drove off. In the video the dog can be seen in the middle of the road with severe injuries to its back legs.
Animal lovers are urgently trying to track the location of the incident so as the dog can be found. CNS contacted the principal of CHHS, Pauline Beckford, along with representatives from the Ministry of Education and Government Information Services.
Beckford, who was initially unaware of the incident, said, “Given the nature and the seriousness of this incident, we will be treating the matter sympathetically to enable the incident to be fully investigated. We have identified a student who was a witness to the incident.”
Following a request by CNS, the Ministry and Department of Education Services released a statement, in which they said that the bus had been identified and all students have access to counselling services, including those who were on the bus and witnessed the incident.
The statement added, “All transportation services for CHHS are contracted to private providers. No buses are government owned or operated. All service providers are bound by a contract, within which the service providers are to report any incidents which happen on the bus to the relevant school and the Department of Education Services. The Department of Education Services has contacted the service provider and is in the process of further investigation into the incident.”
CNS has learnt that the school bus was operated by Whittaker’s Transport.
“This incident was an unfortunate accident,” Clyde Whittaker of Whittaker’s Transport said in response to CNS queries. “We have admonished the driver for not reporting the incident before leaving the scene. He questioned the two bystanders as to ownership of the animal then made the decision to get his passengers to school, where he reported the incident to a supervisor. The supervisor then visited the scene but was unable to find the dog or its owner. Neither supervisor nor driver reported the incident to management. They have both been admonished and are dismayed and ashamed that they did not do more to aid the animal immediately.”
Whittaker added, “We have now installed a system where, should this ever happen again, we will send a relief driver to take over the bus while the driver responsible takes any injured animal to the nearest vet.”
The video was initially received by animal activist Juliette Heath-Ebanks on Saturday evening.
“It is always shocking that someone can run over an animal and drive away without assisting, however this is that much worse as it was a school bus driver with a bus full of kids who witnessed everything,” she said.
Commenting on the response across social media, Heath-Ebanks said, “People are upset and angry nothing was done to assist the injured animal.”
Saskia Salden, director of the Cayman Islands Humane Society, said, “We are saddened and horrified that this happened to this poor dog and we hope that he/she was given medical treatment or humanely put to sleep.”
If anyone finds the dog in this video, please email info@caymannewsservice.com and we will pass the information onto the animal welfare charities.
Category: Local News
What about the dog’s owner? Why don’t people try to keep their dogs off the roads? There are dozen of dogs on Cayman Roads. On Wednesday afternoon in front of The Lobster Pot at 5.15 pm a dog was rushing and barking at the vehicles going South towards Town. But no owner was around. There are simply too many irresponsible dog owners on the road. Now everyone is demonizing the bus driver because he choose to get the children to school on time rather than to stay and let them watch a helpless dog die. I think he did the right thing and I am sure he did not intentionally try to inure the dog.
He was right to carry on to get the kids to school and not to let them see the dog suffer. HOWEVER!! Before driving away, he should have phone dispatch for THEM to call for help for the dog.
Imagine the impression that would have left on the kids!
I saw an update on FB.
A woman witnessed the incident and stayed with the dog to comfort it until the dog could be helped but the poor thing died 15 minutes later.
I love my dog too and i wouldn’t want to know my dog got out and went on the road and some one wiĺfully try to hit him but on the other hand i wouldn’t want to know a bus driver with a load of school children crashed and injured or killed children trying to avoid him. Maybe if there was an outcry like this when it is reported that drivers dont stop for the school bus when its dropping of or picking up children it might get better fot the children and the dogs also after the investigation.
This is not really surprising. Some of those school bus drivers are hopeless and should not be driving our kids around. They will stop anywhere, even on a bend, and you don’t see them until you have turned a corner. Do school bus drivers have to pass a test for advanced driving skills? I doubt it, if my experience every morning is anything to go by!
No surprise to me. Many of our bud drivers aren’t fit for purpose!
Who is this driver and has he been arrested? Moreover, has the dog been found and where is the owner? All too often owners let their dogs roam and then they get injured, poisoned, set on fire, or worse. The Animal Control Law is clear. This piece of human garbage should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Let’s hope this incident isn’t swept under the rug and forgotten.
There is no arrest to be made, except the IDIOT owner of the dog who allowed it to be in the position to be hit by ANY vehicle. You’d prefer the bus driver take evasive maneuvers and endanger a bus load of children? In the inimitable words of my late brother – “What an ass!”
The problem here is irresponsible dog owners violating the law and allowing their animals to roam. Put the blame squarely on the guilty party, not the driver who had the safety of the children foremost.
Hypothetical situation:
You are driving along with three children in the car, in a 40MPH zone at the posted speed. There are concrete walls on either side of the road and suddenly a dog and a child are in the road. What would you do?
We now return you to your regularly scheduled idiocy…
This is so sad and to think that the bus driver just drove off and left the dog in that condition – unbelievable!
The driver was in a tricky position, I would not want my child to be left on the bus while the dig is being tended to. Nor would I want my child to witness the state of the dog or watch it suffering. Does the driver call one of the emergence services. Who walks with the humane society number. Does the driver bring it on the bus?
Where was the owner of the dig?
Leave the driver alone.
Maybe don’t drive so fast that you hit an animal!!!
I think you should stop breeding.
Digs Digs should be on a rope and freely running over the streets.
Kids need to go to school in time. One single dog becomes irrelevant.
Millions of ants die in traffic each minute and 20.000 sick children die each day, because of poverty.
One dog ?
I wasn’t going to look but accidentally clicked. That is SO sad. What kind of human carries on driving???!?!?!?! Even if he had gotten on the phone with someone to ask them to call the Humane Society or ANY of the Animal Charities for him.
To be honest this is very rare, yet hit and runs involving people are extremely common here and it’s an indictment on our driving community that it happens so often.
Man’s faithful servant and best friend deserves better than this.
“Man’s faithful servant and best friend deserves” . . .to be properly CONFINED and cared for, not allowed to roam the streets and be roadkill! Leave the driver alone, and PROSECUTE the dog owner if they can be identified!
So the bus driver should take evasive action, possibly causing injury to the students because of an IRRESPONSIBLE dog owner?
Your priorities are all out of whack!
Granted, it was an unfortunate incident however, it is very likely that same bus with the same group of kids runs over iguanas and chickens on a regular basis.
Where are those videos? Oh, that’s right – we have different standards for different animals.
It’s not like they all feel pain or anything like that.
As for counselling for the kids – come on, stop it.
In my opinion, dealing with and moving beyond this “trauma” on their respective mettle and capabilities will be a character-building moment for these kids.
The kid glove approach of the western world is only producing a bunch of inferior pansies.
Isn’t there a leash law? Why was this dog roaming around the streets? Don’t we have an animal control unit? Lot more things to worry about in Cayman than one dog. Perhaps more attention needs to be paid to all of the pedestrians and cyclists who are killed year after year on our streets. One dog, not exactly a breaking news story.
No surprises there. This is how some of us treat life. Animals have always been at the bottom of the scale and how we treat one another as humans, seems to be heading in the same direction. It is heartening though to see that so many of us can still tell right from wrong.
wow. how disappointing can a human be?
Have they found the dog that was hit by the bus yet. Did they find the owner of the dog and where they able to take the dog to the vet and help it.
What da rass is wrong with some people. XXXX Now those poor kids have the experience of an adult showing no compassion to animals – left for dead. What’s that teaching our young people – hit and run mentality! Accidents happen and it could have been a great life lesson to show compassion and humanity by stopping to assist.
the owner of the dog should be charge for endangering the life of the children and driver on the bus and any other vehicle that traveled that road. What if the Bus had to swerved from the animal and caused human injury. Many of these dogs are a nuisance to the public. RIP dog
I remember the feeling I had towards my dad when I was a kid (10yrs) and he hit a dog and kept driving.
It affected me and how I feel about someone that I thought was a good man. I am now in my 50’s.
Something needs to be done about the school bus drivers. Just go on Walkers Road and look how they are flying in the school zones with flashing lights after school lets out. At times they drive so aggressive that it’s a miracle no kids has been hurt as yet, whether by being a passenger on the bus or by being run over.
What in the third world country did I just read??
Horrible! My guess is that that driver would probably do the same to a human, if he/she thought they’d get away with it. Hope the Education Dept. (which pays school bus services) holds them accountable
What the eff?! This is disgusting!
So what was the bus driver suppose to do, give him CPR?
You can tell a lot about a country’s culture by how it treats its elderly and disabled, and how it treats its animals.
Charge the bus driver but also charge the STUPID OWNERS who left the dog out!!
The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated. – Mahatma Gandhi
No surprise here that it’s a Whittakers bus. And no surprise that there is no response from them. I have called repeatedly to report their drivers and get no answer or response to messages left
CNS: The company has now responded and the article has been updated to include this. Auntie has tackled a question about school buses, which may be useful. See here: Outraged by school bus drivers
Unfortunately, this isn’t a surprise. Many of the bus drivers are useless.
At least it shows we have some young people with empathy toward animals; something sorely lacking in many of the populace here.