In September 2015, Adrena Hartzog’s 5-year-old daughter Zariah was dropped off at the wrong stop and no one seemed to have any answers. Now, Hartzog is suing the transportation company responsible for losing her.
Hartzog, 28, is suing Boro Transit for $7 million. Zariah never arrived at her stop at Flatlands Ave. and 102nd St. on the day of the incident. In her suit, which was filed in Brooklyn Supreme Court, Hartzog claims Boro Transit refused to take her complaint over the incident or even identify the driver.
“Everyone was going home, about their day, while my 5-year-old was missing,” Hartzog told the New York Post.
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She first called Leadership Preparatory Ocean Hill Charter School to find out where Zariah was and later said that no one at the company had an answer so she called 911 and began searching the neighborhood for her daughter.
She added the company claimed the driver could drop the child off at an unexpected stop. When she finally found a weeping Zariah more than 10 blocks away at a busy intersection with no crossing guard, the child was “screaming hysterically” and was so scared she had wet her pants.
Boro Transit said at the time the driver was doing “a favor for another parent” by dropping a different child off closer to a grandparent’s home. It’s unclear who that child was or how the “favor” resulted in Zariah being left at the wrong stop.
Boro Transit lawyer Peter Silverman claims Hartzog’s allegations “do not seem to ring true.”
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Leaving a child at an “unauthorized” stop is a violation of city guidelines for and school bus drivers face up to a six-month suspension for a first offense.
Hartzog told the Post that Zariah was a once bubbly child who is now depressed and consistently anxious, and claims her daughter’s classmates mocked her as “the lost puppy” after the incident.