An angry mother is telling Eyewitness News her child was dropped off miles from home.
School officials say they are lucky the mix-ups do not happen more often, but that's not an answer settling well with Amanda Medlin.
She says her son; 5-year-old Austin Medlin, should have been dropped off just feet from his Wake Forest home after his first day of kindergarten at North Forest Pines Drive Elementary.
But an hour later there was no sign of her son's school bus. Then Amanda says, already panicked she received a phone call.
"She said do you know Austin? I said of course I know Austin he is my son. She said I have your son," Amanda said.
The bus driver dropped the boy off 4 miles from his assigned bus stop at the intersection of Shady Glen and O'Neil Road.
Austin then walked a half mile up the road with no sidewalks until he eventually knocked on a stranger's door.
"He was just very nervous very scared. He didn't cry, he just said I don't know where I'm at. I live far, far away," said Nikki Lupton, who placed the call to Amanda.
Using Austin's name tag, Lupton contacted his parents.
Tuesday Wake County school official Michael Evans said, "it's very unfortunate and we regret it."
Just a week before, a different bus driver left another child from the same school behind after he boarded the wrong bus.
That driver resigned, but legally school officials can't say what happened to Austin's bus driver, other than to say he was disciplined appropriately.
Amanda Medlin is not happy because she doesn't know what that punishment was, and says Austin is no longer riding the bus to school.
