An 11-year-old Georgia boy jumped out of an open school bus window and onto a pickup truck that was driving past in order to escape his bullies. The incident happened in Walton County along Georgia Highway 81 around 2:30 p.m. when the bus was stopped in a turn lane. After landing on the pickup truck, the boy then landed on the highway, the Georgia State Patrol revealed.
- Thankfully, the boy didn’t experience life-threatening injuries. He was taken to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta by Walton EMS but was released shortly after. He was the only one injured, experiencing a concussion and a broken elbow. He’s extremely lucky to be alive!
- His father revealed that the boy had been severely bullied. Dion Murphy told Fox 5 Atlanta that he had told the school previously about his son being bullied but that this incident had clearly pushed the 11-year-old over the edge. “Death. [That’s the] first thing I’m thinking when I hear you jumped out a vehicle because I’m curious if it was moving and I’m thinking about moving traffic and I was concerned he’d get ran over or killed,” Murphy said. “I believe he was trying to escape the situation. At this moment he felt back was up against the wall.”
- Video of the incident showed his son being threatened by another student. Murphy revealed that he was able to watch footage from the bus during a meeting with the principal of Youth Middle School and was devastated by what he saw. “One student jumped in his face, he was pushing him against the window, when he fell, the other student took his shoe and in a desperate attempt to escape it, he jumped out the window,” Murphy recalled. “It broke my heart because this is something that shouldn’t have ever happened, way before this matter happened.”
- Murphy blames the school for failing to protect his son. He said that he saw a different video from another date in which he was being dragged down the aisle of the bus, and a different one in which a girl was hitting him. “There’s more tapes and that’s why I’m so upset because the school neglected the bullying act and did not do anything about it. They took it as horse-play, but my son could have lost his life,” Murphy said. “These generation’s kids are even killing themselves because they’re being bullied.”
- The school said that they’re investigating the situation and the student is no longer enrolled there. “Following a bus incident on May 5, a Walton County School District student sustained minor, non-life-threatening injuries. The other students and driver on the bus were not injured. School and district officials are aware of the bullying allegations made in connection with this event,” the school said in a statement. “The Walton County School District does not tolerate bullying and harassment of any kind. The incident is being thoroughly investigated by school officials and any disciplinary issues that may arise will be handled appropriately at the school level.”
