Where is the "Care" in "Caretaker?"

In this area, the recent death of a 20 year old autistic man is the subject of much sad conversation. He was left in a van after the driver ... forgot? ... him following a trip to Sesame Place that was made by four residents and two staff people at his residential facility.  People are, of course, horrified, sad, and fearful for their own children.


I think of my own son, and am, perhaps unfairly, relieved that he is high functioning enough that he is not so dependent on caretakers to be likely to be in this kind of situation.  It is inexplicable, to me, that two staff would have trouble keeping track of four clients.  In a prior lifetime, I worked with severely retarded "adolescent age" individuals (at the time, and in the place where I worked, that meant individuals from age 14 to 28; "retarded" meant anything from what we now consider cognitively impaired to autistic - as long as the person functioned as someone with a chronological age of 2-4, they were considered retarded).  I took two or three, by myself, to the local shopping mall.  It was "exciting."  It was sometimes a challenge.  Since I was a young worker at the time, and some of my charges looked "normal," I got some strange looks, but I never had any trouble making sure I knew where they were at all times, and I could never, never, have forgotten one.  The responsibility of taking care of these vulnerable and defenseless souls was very real to me.


Fast forward to today.  My son goes to ESY - Extended School Year.  I got a text message from him at about the time he is supposed to arrive at his program.  "The bus driver almost forgot to drop us off at school."  !!!!!  How can a bus driver, whose sole purpose is to transport children to a particular program, forget that he is going there?  There are only three children on the bus, and they all go to the same program.  Where was he going to go?  What if the children weren't a group of high functioning, verbal kids?  What if they were withdrawn, non-verbal, or sleeping?


What is going on, that people who are entrusted with the care of defenseless, dependent others, take their responsibilities so casually that they can "forget" those people in cars, vans, buses?