KG pupil left behind in school van dies

KG pupil left behind in school van dies
By Binsal Abdul Kader, Staff Reporter GULF NEWS Published: April 26, 2008, 00:36

Abu Dhabi: A four-year-old pupil died after he was allegedly left locked in his kindergarten van on Thursday.

Aathish, a KG grade 1 pupil of Merry Land kindergarten on Muroor Road in Abu Dhabi, boarded the van on Thursday morning and a phone call from the school at 12.50pm said he had met with an accident, his father told Gulf News.

"When my wife, father and friends reached Shaikh Khalifa Medical City, the doctors said the child was dead," said Shebin Sreedher who works at Jebel Ali in Dubai and hails from the southern Indian state of Kerala.

"He was my only son," he said. Dhanya, the boy's mother, works for Etihad Airways.

"A hospital report said the cause of the death was unknown, but we came to know from officials that he suffocated," said Shebin.

"We came to know that he did not alight from the van at the kindergarten. He was put in the van at 7.35 am by my father. It is suspected that no staff checked whether the boy alighted from the bus and reached the class.

"The driver and attendant might have taken the bus to the parking space and found the boy inside the bus in the afternoon," said Shebin.

He said police officials told him the matter is under investigation. Police were not available for comment.

A spokesman for the school said that the child had taken ill and was absent from classes for three days.

He said that they were not aware the child had boarded the bus that morning.

The driver himself rushed the child to hospital after he found him in the vehicle, the spokesman said.

The school is cooperating in the police investigations.