Students Stranded: No Help for Five Hours

Around 2:30pm Thursday afternoon, Folmsbee bus company received a call that one of their buses, carrying  the bus driver, a monitor and three pre-schoolers, took what was suppose to be a short cut, but ultimately lost their way and was stuck on an unplowed country road in Stephentown. Only making matters worse,  no one knew where they were and no one had cell service.  In an effort to help them find their way, the monitor got off the bus and walked to find cell service. She only got one call through before her phone went dead. The New York State Police, Folmsbee bus company, The Rensselaer County Sheriff's Department and even locals joined in a full blown search. Around 7pm, they were found safe and sound.

CBS 6 has learned the students were kept warm on the bus, they were given food and also water.

But how could something like this happen?

Mary Fran Wachunas, Rensselaer County's Public Health Director tells CBS 6, the county takes responsibility for Thursday's incident, because they contract out the bus transportation needs of their special needs pre-schoolers. She was one of the first people alerted to Thursday's incident. Now, she's leading the subsequent internal review into the matter.

Turns out-- the driver deviated from the designated route, hoping to take a short cut. That poor judgement call, combined with the bus monitor calling the bus company first, instead of calling 911 and non-working bus radios on board,  turned an unfortunate situation in one that could have easily been prevented.

(CBS6) "How soon will the county be bringing it's communication up to speed?"

(Wachunas) "We will be looking at it as soon as possible. We're working with public safety in all the different towns and villages to see where our communication deficiencies are."

The bus driver responsible for the incident is off her route until the internal investigation is complete.

CBS6 also reached out to Folmsbee bus company for comment. Our calls were not returned.