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The mother of a teenager with autism who was found dead on a school bus said she hasn't gotten any answers from the bus company or the school as to how her son, one of four students on the bus that day, could have been left behind. "I feel like we are nothing," Eun Ha Lee, the mother of 19-year-old Hun "Paul" Joon Lee, told KTLA. "They killed my son. Technically, they killed my son."
Lee, who said her son had the capacity of a three-year-old child, last saw her son on Friday morning. He was picked up by a bus headed to Sierra Adult Vista School, an adult school in the Whittier School District. When her son failed to return home at 3:30 p.m., which is typically the time he would come home, she called the bus company. Receiving no answer, Lee then called her son's teacher, who told her that her son never showed up for class. She then called the police and went to the school. School and bus employees aided in the search, ultimately finding Hun Joon Lee in the aisle of the bus parked in a Whittier Union High School District lot, dead. The bus was operated by Pupil Transportation, the private company that operates the school buses for the district.
Lee said that there were only four students on the bus that day, and that she doesn't understand how he could have been left there. It's not clear how long the teen had been on the bus, but police believe it's possible he had been there since he was picked up. Lee said that her son did not speak, so he wouldn't have been able to call for help. Police have questioned and released the driver. An autopsy is under way to determine the cause of death, according to ABC7.
"My boy is a very, very precious boy. I don't know other people, how they think about my son, but my son is perfect to me," she said.
A GoFundMe has been set up to cover Lee's funeral expenses. According to the page, "Inside the bus was about 120 to 130 degrees and Paul was trapped in there for almost nine hours without a single drop of water. My family is completely torn apart and heart broken, knowing what he had felt during those painful hours. We are hit so hard with this sudden tragedy."
