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Pennsylvania school bus driver facing DUI charges

A student noticed that Vanessa Baillis seemed to forget where she was going, and a criminal complaint states that Baillis drove off the road and fell asleep behind the wheel. Blood work showed oxycodone and a powerful anti-anxiety drug in her system.

November 30, 2015
1 min to read


HAMILTON TOWNSHIP, Pa. — A school bus driver here is facing DUI charges after a student alerted her father about her bad driving, and she reportedly drove off the road and fell asleep behind the wheel, WNEP reports.

School bus driver Vanessa Baillis was recently driving her morning route when eighth-grade student Emma Valinote noticed that Baillis was “acting weird” and seemed to forget where she was going, according to the news source. Valinote sent texts to her father that said Baillis was driving badly. Valinote said that she asked Baillis, who seemed unaware of what was happening, to stop driving, according to WNEP.

Court documents state that Baillis eventually pulled the bus over onto a patch of pavement, and all seven students aboard got off the bus safely, the news source reports. A criminal complaint states that Baillis drove off the road and fell asleep behind the wheel, and troopers told WNEP that Baillis fell asleep in front of them while performing a field sobriety test. Additionally, Baillis’ blood work showed that she had oxycodone and a powerful anti-anxiety drug in her system, according to the news source.

Baillis is no longer employed by the Stroudsburg Area School District, the president of the Stroudsburg School Board told WNEP.

To read the full story, go here.

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