The mentally challenged continue to receive the worst treatment in many circles. Ed Wynn Rivera, a severely disabled man spent 17 hours trapped alone on a dark and frigid school bus when he was left in a parking lot on what has been determined to be one of the coldest nights of the year. Bus matron Linda Hockaday has been charged by the police with reckless endangerment. Hockaday told police that she left him sleeping in his seat because she was late for church. She was late to see Dino, the “Christian Liberace.” This is totally reprehensible and there is no justification for what she did to this man.
Rivera,who is 22 but has the mental capacity of a toddler, might have been rescued sooner, but cops missed him in a search of the bus depot. Cops searched the wrong lot while Rivera sat strapped helplessly in his seat in a lot hidden behind a corrugated steel fence, sources said. He sat there all night long on New Year’s Eve as the mercury plunged to 15 degrees. “How do you miss a whole person?” asked his sister, Khristine Rivera, 23.”He was sitting behind the driver’s seat. How do you miss that?”
The bus driver, who was not identified, had not been charged. Sources said it was Hockaday’s job alone to get the passengers off the bus and account for each one. The outraged family demanded answers from the bus company, his school and the NYPD about blunders that could have killed the gentle young man. “I’m furious,” said the fuming sister. “Something needs to happen. This is sheer stupidity.”
Rivera has cerebral palsy and is mentally disabled. He can speak but needs help doing even basic tasks. He attends a daily program in SoHo run by FEGS, a social services provider, and travels back and forth from the family’s East home by bus. On Wednesday, Rivera was due home about 4 p.m. When he didn’t arrive by 5 p.m., Rivera’s family called the school and the Brooklyn-based bus company, Outstanding Transport, but got no answers. Family members went to their police precinct to report Rivera missing about 9p.m., and cops searched the school. Source: NY Daily News
Doctors at Brookdale University Hospital said Rivera suffered from hypothermia and will have to stay there for at least 48 hours. He should make a full recovery. Once again, a mentally disabled person has been treated in a deplorable way. This brings to mind the case involving Esmin Green, who died at Kings County Hospital while the staff walked around and ignored her. Ms. Hockaway didn’t follow God’s word about the treatment of the sick and the children. She deserves to be left on a bush in the middle of Siberia, without a winter coat and gloves.
Filed under: Cerebral Palsy, Ed Wynn Rivera, FEGS Program, Hypothermia, Left on a Bus, Linda Hockaday, Mentally Disabled
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