Emergency personnel work the scene where a student was struck and killed in front of Chattanooga Valley Elementary School on Monday.
Site where a child was fatally struck by a bus at Chattanooga Valley Elementary School.Nobody knows why 6-year-old Zackery Bryant walked in front of the bus.
There is a routine, school officials say. It’s practiced at the beginning of every year until students understand what to do when their driver drops them off. They walk forward, straight toward the building.
But, for some reason, Zackery immediately turned left when he got off his bus at Chattanooga Valley Elementary School on Monday morning. He stopped in front of the vehicle’s front right tire.
Then, investigators who looked at security footage say, the kindergartner appeared to bend down, perhaps to look for something he lost.
Seconds after Zackery exited, 50-year-old Joel Lee Hitchcox put the Walker County Schools bus in drive again.