Mom says teen's leg broken on bus

HAMPTON, Va. (WAVY) - A Hampton mother says her special needs daughter came home with a broken leg and says school officials have taken too long to respond.

Renea Havard said her daughter Haylee gets picked up by a school bus every day to go to Phoebus High School. Haylee's school day on Sept. 24 was cut short. Havard says school nurses called her, letting her know Haylee had been injured.

"We got to the hospital and the doctor took me into another room to show me the X-ray," Havard said. "The top of her femur was broken all the way through and shifted off to the side."

Doctors found a second break near her knee. Surgery, recovery and a bone infection kept Haylee hospitalized for three weeks. Havard says she still doesn't know how her daughter's leg was broken.

"'[Her knee] had to have taken a blow,' they said," Havard said.

Haylee has cerebral palsy and epilepsy which prevents her from talking or walking, meaning she was unable to express how the injury happened.

"She already goes through so much anyway," Havard said. "She can't tell me how it hurts. She can't tell me who did it to her. She can't tell me how it happened."

Havard says she thinks Haylee was injured on the school bus. She thinks a bus aide may have accidentally caused the breaks by pushing Haylee's wheelchair forward. Havard says Haylee's legs might have gotten jammed under the seat in front of her.

"The whole seat is messed up," Havard said.

Havard says she is even more pained by what she says is a lack of response from school officials.

"I feel like she doesn't matter," Havard said "As the Districts are going on, cheerleading competitions, football games, dances and meetings, we are sitting here looking at her and going, 'Why?' Give me an answer."

School officials say the principal is looking into the matter, but Havard wants to know what is taking so long.

"I'm beyond angry," Havard said.

Havard says she met with school officials Wednesday and they looked at video from a camera on the bus. She says you can clearly see the aide pushing the wheelchair off to the side, allegedly breaking the teen's leg.

School officials told WAVY.com there is no evidence on that tape of how Haylee was hurt.