After a child was hit by a car at a Walden Lake bus stop Tuesday, Dec. 2, parents are petitioning school district officials in attempts to change the location of the bus stop.
The bus stop is near the intersection of Timberlane Drive and Silverwood Drive and has no sidewalks around it. Children have been getting on or off of the bus from a landscaped median that separates the lanes on Silverwood Drive.
After a day at Walden Lake Elementary School, Grady Coffey, 9, got off the bus and walked over to the median, Dec. 2.
“(He) went to put away a book that he had been reading on the bus,” his mother, Suzie Coffey, said.
“When he bent down to put the book in his backpack, another mother who had picked up her kids went to pull her car away from the front of the island, where she had parked it. … And when she pulled forward, she hit him in the hip, causing him to fall down. His backpack went underneath her tire, and it pulled him,” Coffey said.
According to the police report, the driver did not see Grady bending down at the curb, and when she felt a bump, she stopped her SUV to find out what she had hit.
When she realized what had happened, she sent her own children to notify Suzie, who had been taking care of her baby and sick child at home.
“He didn’t have a safe place to put his book away in his backpack,” Coffey said. “We’ve always taught him, don’t step on flowers and stuff, so he didn’t. He did exactly what he’s supposed to do — he stayed on the curb of the island.”
Grady was taken to St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital, where he stayed overnight. He suffered severe road rash on his leg, neck sprain and a fractured bone in the pelvic region. He has been using a wheelchair and walker since the incident.
“He’s getting around a little better every day, but it’s quite painful for him,” Coffey said.
The driver who hit Grady declined to comment.
For years, Grady and other students have had to gather on the median’s curb, trying to find a space to stand. But it wasn’t always so. The bus stop used to be just inside of the Silverwood subdivision, and children could wait on the sidewalk there. Five years ago, it was moved to its current location at Timberlane Drive, where the speed limit is 30 miles per hour.
“The community’s never really liked it out there, and I can imagine they’re going to like it a lot less now,” Peter Coffey, Grady’s father, said.
The bus driver has been stopping the bus right at the intersection, next to the median where Coffey was hit, which parents and children assumed was the correct place.
However, an employee from Hillsborough County Public Schools Transportation was on the scene the morning of Monday, Dec. 8, to make sure the bus pulled up about 200 feet past the intersection, where children could wait in a grassy area on Timberlane Drive. He said the driver’s previous stopping point was actually illegal.
There is still no sidewalk at the correct stopping point, and anthills are present.
Suzanne Calder is another parent who has joined the Coffeys in contacting school district staff. Her son, Randal Calder, also gets picked up and dropped off at this bus stop.
“My goal is to get the bus stop changed at this point, because I don’t want somebody killed before that happens,” Calder said.
Calder and the Coffeys submitted formal letters to officials of Hillsborough County School District last week, hoping to get the bus stop moved back to its previous location.
“We just don’t want someone else to get hurt,” Coffey said. “We’re lucky that this is all it was, and very thankful that he’s going to recover fully. Had he been on the sidewalk, it never would have happened.”
Contact Catherine Sinclair at csinclair@plantcityobserver.com.