An Ottawa family is demanding answers after their son disappeared five hours after he was picked up from school on Monday.
The parents say their son Nathan, an 11-year-old sixth-grader, wandered for hours in an unfamiliar neighborhood until a good Samaritan intervened and helped him return home safely.
The student boarded the school transport van, which usually takes him home from the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Catholic Primary School in Baraven, but the driver did not take him home.
“He was supposed to be home, as usual, about 20 minutes after four, and then we noticed at 4:50 that he wasn’t home yet,” Nathan’s father said.
Parents do not want to be identified due to the nature of their work.
About 30 minutes after Nathan’s usual return time, the parents contacted Roxborough Bus Lines.
“They called the driver and the driver said they never took our son after school. They said he never got in the van.”
However, other parents said they saw Nathan get into the van. For unknown reasons, the driver of the van did not go to Nathan’s stop. Instead, she went home, leaving Nathan alone in the car, although he asked where they were going and banged on the windows. The parents suggest that the driver was distracted by music.
“She’s actually driving me to her apartment, which I didn’t know,” Nathan told CTV News Ottawa on Friday. “I managed to get out of the van when she parked, but I didn’t know which apartment building she went to.”
Nathan’s parents visited the school and contacted Ottawa police, who reported Nathan missing and released a news release with a picture of him.
“The police went to the driver’s house. They were adamant that they had never picked him up,” Nathan’s father said. “They searched the apartment, he wasn’t there. They searched the van, it wasn’t in the van.”
Nick McRae, owner and president of Roxborough Bus Lines, told CTV News that the company was aware of the situation and was cooperating with police while the investigation continued. He said the driver was removed until the company received more information from the police investigation.
A spokesman for the Conseil des écoles catholiques du Center-Est said school staff had taken immediate action when they learned that a child had not returned from school.
“As soon as the CECCE administration was informed that a child had not returned home after school, action was taken to support the family and search efforts to locate him as soon as possible,” the board said in a statement.
“In fact, the teachers at the Pierre-Elliott-Trudeau École catholique élémentaire searched the surrounding areas and a letter was sent to the school community. Social media posts, including a photo of the child, were also shared on CECCE accounts.
After wandering around Westborough alone for hours, Nathan finally found help at Tunney’s Pasture Light Rail Station, 12 miles from his school in Baravan.
“I was very tired and found this guy waiting for his Uber and I asked him, ‘Hey, can you do a Google search for this place?'” Nathan said.
This man was Dave Ellis, returning from a downtown gathering.
“He approached me very cautiously and said, ‘Can you help me?’ And I said, well, of course,” Ellis said.
Nathan’s family is new to Ottawa, and he didn’t know his parents’ phone numbers. Ellis helped bring the child home.
“I made the driver change the route and we took him home first, and then we took me home,” Ellis said.
“It’s just very nice of him to let me into Uber and pay for it so he can get me there,” Nathan said.
Although Nathan is safe and has returned home, his parents are still trying to figure out what happened.
“When I found out he was back, I was quite relieved,” Nathan’s mother said. “But we are still left with no answers.”
With files from Graham Richardson and Michael Woods from CTV News Ottawa
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