An eighteen-year old mentally disabled woman was reported missing yesterday, Wednesday, after she failed to return home at the end of the school day.
The woman had been picked up at her school earlier that day by the travel service the city offers disabled people. She was then driven to Hitt húsið, a youth centre which runs among other things an after school programme for disabled teenagers, in central Reykjavík. At the end of the day employees at Hitt húsið noticed the woman was missing and alerted her parents.
The young woman was found at around 8 pm after an extensive search conducted by the police and search and rescue units. She was found inside the mini-bus which had been parked outside the driver’s house. The woman had been sitting in the vehicle, still strapped into her seatbelt, for seven hours.
The director of All Iceland Tours, the company in question, claims the woman did leave the bus and enter Hitt húsið but must have returned and hid inside the bus. In an interview with Morgunblaðið newspaper he also criticises Hitt húsið’s employees for not having assisted the driver to escort the passengers into the building.
The woman’s father, on the other hand, says the director’s claims are improbable seeing as how his daughter is unable to fasten or loosen a seatbelt herself and could therefore not have returned to the car and strapped herself in.
The company Strætó oversees the city’s travel services for the disabled, but employs contractors such as All Iceland Tours to do the actual chauffeuring. Strætó and the service it provides has been greatly criticised over the past couple of months.
Dagur B. Eggertsson, the mayor of Reykjavík, is extremely saddened by the incident and says the matter is too serious to be ignored.
“The travel services we offer disabled people is to be defined by safety and good service. This has not been the case,” he told Vísir.
An eighteen-year old mentally disabled woman was reported missing yesterday, Wednesday, after she failed to return home at the end of the school day.
The woman had been picked up at her school earlier that day by the travel service the city offers disabled people. She was then driven to Hitt húsið, a youth centre which runs among other things an after school programme for disabled teenagers, in central Reykjavík. At the end of the day employees at Hitt húsið noticed the woman was missing and alerted her parents.
The young woman was found at around 8 pm after an extensive search conducted by the police and search and rescue units. She was found inside the mini-bus which had been parked outside the driver’s house. The woman had been sitting in the vehicle, still strapped into her seatbelt, for seven hours.
The director of All Iceland Tours, the company in question, claims the woman did leave the bus and enter Hitt húsið but must have returned and hid inside the bus. In an interview with Morgunblaðið newspaper he also criticises Hitt húsið’s employees for not having assisted the driver to escort the passengers into the building.
The woman’s father, on the other hand, says the director’s claims are improbable seeing as how his daughter is unable to fasten or loosen a seatbelt herself and could therefore not have returned to the car and strapped herself in.
The company Strætó oversees the city’s travel services for the disabled, but employs contractors such as All Iceland Tours to do the actual chauffeuring. Strætó and the service it provides has been greatly criticised over the past couple of months.
Dagur B. Eggertsson, the mayor of Reykjavík, is extremely saddened by the incident and says the matter is too serious to be ignored.
“The travel services we offer disabled people is to be defined by safety and good service. This has not been the case,” he told Vísir.
