Parents of brain-damaged boy sue Groton district for negligence

By Maria Sacchetti, Globe Staff | June 21, 2005

A Groton couple whose brain-damaged son was left for several hours in a school van on a sweltering summer day has filed a civil lawsuit accusing the public school district, a transportation supervisor, and the van's driver of negligence.

Glen and Susan Searles, whose son Danny cannot walk or talk, allege in the suit that Groton Dunstable Regional School District failed to properly train the driver or enforce safety checks on school vans. Danny Searles, who was 11 at the time of the episode almost two years ago, was disabled since birth but his parents allege the incident made his condition worse.

The Searles are seeking unspecified monetary damages in the suit, filed May 31 in Middlesex Superior Court against the school system, van driver Deborah Stone of New Hampshire, and her supervisor, Phyllis Jewett. Stone left the boy in the van, had coffee with Jewett, and then returned more than six hours later to discover him limp and unresponsive in 90-degree heat. He was hospitalized for several days.

''They started with a severely disabled child who's totally dependent, totally vulnerable," said the Searles' lawyer, Jeffrey N. Roy, of Boston. ''And here he was left in the situation where he could not even cry out for help for himself."

Stone, 47, said yesterday she did not mean to leave Searles in the van. She lost her job and pleaded guilty last year to criminal child endangerment. She was sentenced to two years' probation and banned from driving a school bus for life.

In December, Stone's idling truck slipped out of gear and rammed into her as she tried to close her garage doors. She is paralyzed from the waist down, said her physician, Deborah Dennis.

''When I was laying in the hospital, I thought it was the way the Lord was paying me back for what I'd done," said Stone, who now lives in Nashua. ''My friends all reassured me that he doesn't work that way."

Groton Dunstable Superintendent Mary Athey Jennings would not comment on the lawsuit, saying the school system has not been formally notified of it. But she said school bus drivers are trained to check for students on buses and vans. ''We want the parents to know that their children are looked after," Jennings said.

Jewett, who still works for the school system, declined to comment.

Groton Dunstable was in charge of providing transportation for Searles to Children's Extended Care Center, a private facility 3 miles from his home that he attended because regular public schools could not address his needs. Searles uses a wheelchair, has epilepsy, and cannot dress or care for himself, but he recognizes his parents and two sisters, said Roy. Now 13, Searles lives at the private facility.

Stone still cannot explain how she forgot Searles in the van on Aug. 21, 2003, as she filled in for his regular driver who was on vacation. Stone picked Searles up at home, secured his wheelchair in the back of the van, but did not drop him off at school.

Instead, she drove to a school parking lot and switched to the van she usually drove. She went for coffee with Jewett, and headed home to New Hampshire to do farm work until it was time to pick up Searles.

Maria Sacchetti can be reached at msacchetti@globe.com.

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