Omaha Metro bus driver locates, comforts missing boy
Click here for updates on this story
OMAHA, NE (WOWT) — A quick-thinking and observant bus driver helped reunite a teenager with his family.
One woman was curious enough to put it together — when many others may have just kept driving.
At a time when most of what we’re talking about it COVID-19 related, this is one of those stories where we still think about all the things that could go wrong with a missing child.
Before work, Metro bus driver Lisa Furmanski tries to catch up with what’s happening in the city on Twitter.
Lisa Furnanski said, “A 14-year-old was missing, and I shared it on my Facebook page.”
Yesterday on Omaha Scanner, she saw a heartbreaking plea from a mom for a missing teenage boy with autism.
She wondered, where was he? And how worried his family must be.
As Lisa Furmanski routinely picked up and dropped off passengers on her 3 pm-11 shift she thought she saw him walking towards Westroads Mall.
What are the chances of that, she thought — in a city like Omaha?
“That’s when I looked, and he was barefooted. He looked just like the kid I saw on the picture. I said, ‘oh my gosh, that’s him.”
It was him, she had dispatch call 911 and police reached out to his mother. Meanwhile, she tried to keep him calm.
“He really looked at me like how did she know my name,” said Lisa. “So, then I said — do you want me to give you a ride and he said he didn’t have any money and I said, that’s okay, I’ll take care of it. So, he got on the bus and I said, where do you want to go? And he said, ‘downtown.’”
Eventually, he was reunited with his mother, grateful that someone was watching out for her son.
“Being a mother and a grandparent, you do the right thing. Plus, training at METRO, they taught us to know our surroundings. When we drive, we look at more things that anyone knows — cause we’re out there,” said Lisa.
Lisa gave him some items she always keeps on the bus, a candy bar, and lifesavers.
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.
