The Nation - News from June 1, 1986

The Chicago bus driver who reportedly refused to take a dying child to a hospital was suspended for improper response in an emergency, and a union official protested that drivers are not allowed to leave their routes without special permission. George Dalmas, vice president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 241, said that the rookie driver, Ben Perry, was being made a scapegoat in the incident. The 9-year-old girl died after another passenger carried her to a hospital emergency room one block off the bus line. Chicago Transit Authority officials said that Perry, 32, was suspended for three days for failure to inform the dispatcher of the emergency and failure to file a report on it, not for refusing to drive to the hospital.