The mother of a 5-year-old boy who fell asleep and wandered off a school bus last week is hoping the Box Elder School District will add security alarms to buses to prevent a reoccurrence.

Julie Snow's son Dylan, who has autistic spectrum disorder, dozed off on his afternoon bus trip Friday to Early Learning Center, a teaching facility for 3- to 5-year-olds, and woke up after the driver had gone home. The boy wandered around Tremonton before a resident found him trying to cross a street at 300 East and 700 North, about 20 miles from his school.

"It was pretty scary," Snow said. "The police came to my door about 10 minutes before my son was supposed to be home and told me he had got off the bus at the wrong stop but was now safe."

The bus driver and an aide are supposed to walk up and down the bus making sure all children depart the vehicle, but in this case Dylan was left unattended.

"We've had bus drivers who've found students at the end of the route and driven them home, but nothing to this extent," said Martell Menlove, Box Elder School District superintendent.

The driver and aide have been suspended pending an investigation, and Menlove said the school district might look into additional measures to prevent a similar occurrence.

Dylan's mother drove him to school Monday but said she holds no malice against the bus driver since "accidents do happen."

"I'm fairly confident they'll find a way to fix this," Snow said. "I'd like to see them put alarms in the bus so the bus driver would have to turn them off and check them off before leaving it."

Neighboring Cache County has an alarm system that requires the driver to walk to the back of the bus and manually turn off the alarm before turning off the vehicle, or else alarms will go off, said Wayne Reese, transportation supervisor for Cache County and Logan City school districts. The alarms were implemented more than five years ago after a bus driver had parked the vehicle and found a child still on the bus.

"The child was never left unattended, but it alerted us to the potential," Reese said. "We're all human; none of us are immune from making mistakes. This may help the driver on days they do make mistakes. I personally think it should be on every school bus in the state of Utah."

Menlove said the Box Elder District might consider additional security measures, such as a tablet at the back of the bus to check off after dropping off children.

"Accidents happen, but it's a mistake that needs to be fixed," Snow said. "I'm hoping there will be more awareness that this is a possibility."

Snow said her son will continue riding the bus to school for the next three weeks and then he will be driven to kindergarten a few blocks away.

E-MAIL: lgroves@desnews.com