39 y/ o Lycia Martinez has been a Davis, Utah School District school bus driver for 6 years, and while she’s not a “boozer” apparently she’s had a significant Rx drug problem, prompting several unsuccessful stints at rehab but managing to remain below her employer’s, and the law’s, radar, until yesterday (Monday, 10/13/14), when 75 people were on Lycia’s school bus (67 students and 8 adults, including teachers and one school administrator, from 4 elementary schools) tooling along on a field trip to a student council conference at Brigham Young University.
Just before 8 a.m. folks, inside and outside of the bus, started calling 911 because of Lycia’s driving. Among the calls:
“I don’t get scared very easy, but my heart is pounding,” a woman who saw the bus told a 911 dispatcher. “I am honestly shaking at this point.”
“Whoever is driving this thing can’t maintain a lane,” the first man who called 911 told a dispatcher.
The passenger who initially dialed 911 said: “We are concerned with our bus driver. Can an officer follow behind her for awhile and see if he agrees with her driving? She can’t stay in a lane, she’s crossing the double line and the adults are getting scared. “We have a long ways to go with this lady and we are not feeling secure.”
This passenger stayed on the line until troopers pulled the bus driver over. Several times during the 10-minute phone call, the woman made comments such as, “It is freaking scary, and we’ve got 76 people on this bus,” “We’re nervous,” “She’s freaking us out,” and “I feel like I’m on a stupid Lagoon ride.” At one point the woman got excited and said, “She almost hit this man next to us. … She just gets so darn close to these cars … I’m going to just close my eyes so I see nothing.”
Per the trooper who pulled Martinez over and arrested her: “The vehicle kept drifting back and forth, almost hit a couple of cars, seemed very erratic. She was able to follow the conversation OK, was a little slow, was very unsteady, swayed a lot. She couldn’t really explain why we would have this many people call, complaining about her driving. She tried saying she was using the radio, but that didn’t add up to the miles upon miles that we kept getting calls about it.”
According to police, the driver was believed to have been under the influence of Rx prescription drugs for anxiety and pain, which did not come as a surprise to her family. Per her (the driver’s) mother-in-law, Louella Craig: “Her husband begged her this morning if she didn’t feel good to stay home, and she went anyway.” Louella Craig claimed that her daughter-in-law had taken medication for a sinus infection, but that that was just one of many prescription drugs that her daughter-in-law has been abusing for years. She needs help, and she needs help now,” Craig said. “They take her to rehab and they just put her out in a week.”
In her six years working for the Davis School District, Martinez has never had any issues, according to district spokesman Chris Williams. “If there wasn’t a clean record, then she wouldn’t be driving for us,” Williams said. All drivers in the Davis School District get a drug screening before they’re hired, according to Williams, and they’re subject to at least one random testing a year. If a driver is taking prescription drugs, District policy requires they report it to their supervisor.
Martinez is facing charges for a class A misdemeanor count of DUI, as well as failing to operate within one lane, and she has been put on paid administrative leave by the school district pending her criminal case.
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