Alone after being left on the side of the Hwy 2 after getting on the wrong bus by mistake, a terrified Red Deer teen trudged through the ditch to safety.
Leslie Schafer said her daughter Alison had makeup all down her face and red eyes when she came to rescue her about 3:30 p.m.
“She was shaking, just terrified,” said Schafer. “I was crying while I was driving to get her.
“It’s not a good highway, it’s not very safe. There are so many what ifs about what could have happened.”
A Greyhound spokesperson said they sincerely apologize for the incident. And the company said it has apologized to the family and will provide travel vouchers.
An experienced bus rider, Alison regularly takes a bus to Calgary to visit her father.
On May 1, she got on the Greyhound bus that the 16-year-old thought was going to Calgary. Before she got on board, she asked the driver if it was the Calgary bus and he told her it was. She handed him her Calgary ticket and boarded.
Everything seemed normal as the bus headed towards 32nd Street and onto Hwy 2.
But the bus turned north towards Edmonton instead of south.
Alison turned to a fellow passenger and asked her if they were on the Calgary bus. The passenger told her she was on the Edmonton bus.
She went to the bus driver and said she got on the wrong bus and asked to be let off.
Alison asked the driver to let her off just a short distance up the road at the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame and Museum. This request was denied.
The bus stopped a little further along and Alison was left on the side of Hwy 2, alone, terrified and in tears.
She walked five to 10 minutes to the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame and Museum and waited for her mother to pick her up.
“She phoned me just sobbing,” said Schafer. “She didn’t know where she was, she saw a building up ahead but didn’t know what it was. Just from her describing what she was seeing, I was able to figure out where she was.
“I drove to Heritage Ranch and walked over to the museum to pick her up. She was so upset.”
In an emailed statement, a Greyound spokesperson said the safety of customers is the cornerstone of their business.
“We take incidents such as this very seriously. We strive to provide an overall great travel experience and this is not representative of that commitment to our customers,” read the email.
“We are currently looking into exactly what happened and why proper procedure may not have been followed.”
Schafer said she called the local Greyhound station and corporate offices to make a complaint over the incident.
mcrawford@www.reddeeradvocate.com