Driver walks off, stranding passengers
Driver walks off, stranding passengers_ Greyhound officials located a driver on Monday who walked away from her bus in the middle of the night in rural Missouri, leaving 45 passengers stranded for about eight hours at a gas station, the company said.The company was conducting an investigation of the incident and will take "appropriate disciplinary actions," spokeswoman Maureen Richmond said.
"It was certainly unprecedented and absolutely inexcusable," Richmond said.
Richmond did not identify the driver but said she was based in Memphis, Tennessee, and was cooperating with officials after being unavailable immediately after the incident. Richmond said the company made contact with the driver on Monday and was questioning her about her actions.
The woman was driving a route from Memphis to St. Louis -- normally a six-hour trip -- but left the bus 150 miles short of her destination, turning the journey into a roughly 16-hour ordeal for passengers who boarded in Memphis.
Passengers who left Memphis about 7:30 p.m. Friday finally made it into St. Louis about noon on Saturday. No one was harmed.
The trouble began near Sikeston, Missouri, when the driver put an unruly passenger off the bus. The driver then took the bus east about 20 miles to Charleston, Missouri, where she abandoned it about 150 miles south of St. Louis.
A Greyhound replacement driver was sent, but didn't get to the bus until about 8 a.m. on Saturday, some eight hours after the driver walked off, the company said. Greyhound was offering full refunds, Richmond said.
Source: yahoo