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After child choked on bus, driver charged with neglect

A school bus driver is arrested and charged with child neglect after a child was choked unconscious by another child on her bus. Detectives say that the driver “failed to provide any assistance to the victim during or after the Oct. 15 attack.”

October 24, 2013
2 min to read


NAPLES, Fla. — A school bus driver was arrested and charged with child neglect on Friday after a child was choked unconscious by another child on the bus she was driving.

Collier County Sheriff’s Office detectives said that Irena Fulton, 57, “failed to provide any assistance to the victim during or after the Oct. 15 attack.”

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According to police reports, Fulton was driving a Collier County Public Schools bus from a Boys and Girls Club to an elementary/intermediate school when the suspect attacked the victim around 7 p.m.

The victim told detectives that the suspect, unprovoked, had put him in a choke hold and choked him unconscious on the bus, reports said.

According to police reports, “at no time did Fulton stop the bus to ask if there was a problem.”

Detectives said that another student assisted the victim off of the bus and onto the sidewalk. According to police reports, Fulton did not get off of the bus to inquire about the seriousness of the injury to the victim, nor did she call 911 or call for medical assistance.

Police said that the bus depot staff learned of the incident after the school called and notified them of it the next day.

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Detectives arrested the juvenile suspect in the attack on a felony charge of battery on Oct. 17.

The news recalls a recent incident in Pinellas County, Fla., in which a school bus driver was criticized for not physically intervening when a student was being beaten by three older students on his bus.

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