Mom: Driver left my kid on hot, locked bus for hours

TOMBALL, Texas -- A mother is angry after she said her 5-year-old son was left on a locked, hot school bus for as long as two hours Thursday afternoon.

"I thought my mom wasn't going to come forever," said Jeremiah Bradford. The words brought tears to his mother's eyes.

"I am very angry, very upset but on the other hand, I'm glad my son is alive," said Jennifer Swanson, Jeremiah's mother.

Swanson said when she went to pick up Jeremiah from Toddler House on Charterstone Drive near Tomball around 5:30 Thursday evening, the daycare workers could not find him. She rushed back to the school from where her son gets picked up. While she was gone, they found him on the bus parked outside. Jeremiah was sweaty but okay. His mother can't help but think of what could have happened.

"I think the only reason it (his death) didn't happen was because it wasn't 100 degrees outside," Swanson said.

Tejal Patel of Child Protective Services confirmed the daycare's director self-reported the incident. Repeated requests for comment to the daycare have gone unanswered.

Swanson questioned why a simple headcount wasn't done. The incident happened on Jeremiah's sixth day at the daycare. Swanson said she had done her research before enrolling him and felt comfortable with the facility's relatively clean record. Now, Jeremiah won't be going back.

"I can't," said Jeremiah. "My momma says I can't go back there."