KANNAPOLIS, N.C.,None — An elementary school student was run over by a school bus in Kannapolis Wednesday morning, Kannapolis police said.
Damarea Porter, 5, has critical injuries, officers said.
The driver of bus No. 48 from Cabarrus County Schools hit Damarea at about 7:45 a.m., according to district officials.
The incident happened at the Royal Gardens apartment complex, located at University Drive and Concord Lake Road. The driver picked up children at each intersection within the complex, police said, and was driving away. She was unaware that Damarea, who was late, was running toward the back of the bus.
"He was running real fast down the sidewalk and (his mother) was like, ‘Damarea!'" the boy's aunt, Claudia Porter, said.
Damarea, a student at Royal Oaks Elementary, apparently didn't hear her and kept running. The bus driver didn't see him and kept driving, police said.
Police said video from the bus shows that Damarea tripped, falling under the bus as it moved forward. Children who were on the bus said they screamed, but the driver didn't hear them until it was too late.
"Everybody (on the bus) started yelling, ‘You ran over him. You ran over him,'" 10-year-old Jessica Laredo, who was on the bus at the time, said. "(The driver was) like, ‘Oh, my God, I'm stressed out. I don't know what to do.'"
The students were transferred to another bus and then taken to school, district officials said.
Damarea was airlifted to Carolinas Medical Center, where he is being treated.
"That's all I'm going to pray and hope and wish for right now," Claudia Porter said. "I just hope that he makes it and comes back here to us."
The bus driver is on paid suspension, which district officials said is standard procedure.