Kindergartner Lost for Hours After Boarding Wrong School Bus

On October 9th, 2025, a 5-year-old boy named Hendrix Camden was left stranded miles from home after boarding the wrong school bus in California's Amador County. Hendrix, who has special needs and had just started kindergarten, was dropped off at an unfamiliar location by a bus that was not his regular route.

Hendrix's mother, Twilight, was alarmed when she realized her son had not returned home on his usual bus. "Yesterday, his normal bus driver showed up and we made eye contact, and he goes, 'Hendrix isn't on my bus today,' " she recalled. Twilight then learned from another child on the bus that Hendrix had boarded a different vehicle.

Over an hour later, Twilight received a call informing her that Hendrix had been found by an employee of Kamps Tree Services, who discovered the young boy "wandering down [a] winding road" about three miles from home. The tree service worker tried to make Hendrix comfortable until his mother arrived.

Twilight is now seeking answers from the Amador County Unified School District about the incident, which left her fearing for her son's safety. "Protocol is for a kindergartner to be released to an adult or a parent, and if there's not anybody there, you don't have signal. You keep driving to the next stop and you call then," she said. "It just wasn't handled correctly."