Click here for updates on this story
WESTMORELAND COUNTY, PA (KDKA) — A bus driver in Westmoreland County stopped to help two toddlers who were wandering alone near a road.
What happened along the 2700 block of Melwood Road in Allegheny Township is one part heroic and as police put it, one part “inexcusable.”
According to Allegheny Township police, Kiski Area school bus driver Sheri Nance was driving kids home when she saw something she couldn’t believe. There was a small child, under 2 years old, crawling along the shoulder of the busy road.
“She had to apply the breaks in an emergency fashion to not strike the child literally on the highway. There was another child, also about 2 years of age, standing right off on the shoulder as well,” Allegheny Township Police Chief Duane Fisher said.
Investigators say the home that the children were in front of had a wide-open front door, the same door investigators say 34-year-old Tiffany Nicole Higgens came out of to tell the driver that she lost track of the children and was giving a bath to a third child.
Police say there was a broken baby gate on the front porch. The road in front of the house has a 55 miles per hour speed limit.
Police arrived to talk to Higgens and discovered the conditions inside the home were, as court record states, “deplorable.”
KDKA’s Ross Guidotti knocked on the door of the home where the kids allegedly escaped from. No one answered, but a voice on the other side of the door said what happened was “all a mistake.”
However, police say Nance is nothing short of a hero.
“There is no doubt that this bus driver saved the life of that child,” Fisher said.
Higgens faces multiple felony counts of endangering the welfare of a child and other charges. She’s free awaiting a December preliminary hearing. Westmoreland County Family and Youth Services has also launched an investigation into the conditions of the home.
Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.
Regulators authorized AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine for use in adults throughout the European Union on Friday, amid criticism the bloc is not moving fast enough to vaccinate its population.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A former FBI lawyer was sentenced to probation for altering an email that the Justice Department relied on during its surveillance of an aide to President Donald Trump during the Russia investigation.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Democratic Gov. Tony Evers lashed out Friday at rival Republicans who tried to repeal his statewide mask mandate, saying killing the order would be a ridiculous move comparable to abolishing speed limits.
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — As some conservatives in South Carolina celebrated getting a bill that would ban almost all abortions in the state past a legislative barrier and likely becoming law, they said they are not finished trying to end all abortions.
A Moscow court on Friday put the brother and several allies of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny under house arrest for two months as authorities sought to stymie more protests over the jailing of the top Kremlin foe.