How did a bus driver drop off a first grader at the wrong stop, miles from home?

Maniyah Hickman, 6, was riding the bus from her private school to her home in Cobbs Creek on Wednesday when the substitute driver made her get off at 13th and Courtland Streets in Logan - about nine miles from her home.

When she saw that it was not her stop and tried to clamber back on, the driver said, "Bye," and drove off.

Stranded in an unfamiliar place, the first grader began raising her arms and gesturing to try to get the attention of some adults on the corner.

"I was scared, and I was kind of nervous," Maniyah recalled. "I was trying to get somebody's attention. This nice man came over and said, 'Do you live around here?' "

The little girl said no and told him what had happened. When he asked her if she knew a phone number she could call, Maniyah said she knew her grandmother's cellphone number. He handed her his phone so she could call it.

The man, Chris Gray, 28, of Logan, recalled Monday that he had been walking to the store when he heard a little voice saying, "Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me."

"I said, 'Let me go over here and see what this little girl is talking about," he said. "I am familiar with the kids in the neighborhood and I didn't recognize her."

Meanwhile, across town, Shantale Hickman, the child's mother, and grandmother Shantale Galloway were waiting at the stop at 56th Street and Walton Avenue. It was 5:20. There was no sign of Maniyah, and they were getting worried.

Hickman called the Philadelphia School District, which contracts with bus companies to serve nonpublic school students, and was told that the driver was ending his route and Maniyah should be there shortly.

Five minutes later, Galloway's cellphone rang.

She didn't recognize the number and was stunned when she heard her granddaughter's voice on the line.

Hickman talked to the man who lent Maniyah his phone. He said his name was Chris, and he agreed to wait with Maniyah until Hickman and her mother could drive across town to get there.

"He seemed nice," Maniyah said of Gray, adding that he bought her chips and a bottle of water from a corner store while they waited.

For his part, Gray said, "I couldn't leave the little girl in the street like that. That wouldn't have been right at all."

The whole ordeal "was just a crazy, scary moment" that Hickman said she won't soon forget. "The man was nice," she said, "but what if the wrong person got her?"

A spokeswoman for the bus company - MAT Total Transportation in Bridesburg, which has a contract with the School District to transport students in nonpublic schools - described the incident as a "child mix-up," saying the driver confused Maniyah with another child.

Hickman said Maniyah is "physically OK. But she broke down crying that night. She was scared."

Kimberly Jones, office manager at the City School's Fairmount campus, which Maniyah attends, said the school has had a slew of problems with the bus company.

Jones said another 6-year-old recently was dropped off a short distance from that child's stop in West Philadelphia.

But Jones said that headache pales in comparison to what happened to Maniyah. "She was traumatized," Jones said. "She had to find a stranger to get help."

Jones and Hickman said they are still waiting for a call from a MAT supervisor to explain why a substitute driver, who had a list with the students' names, bus stops, and parents' phone numbers, made Maniyah get off the bus miles from her destination.

"The main issue for us has been the lack of communication," Jones said.

Carolyn Daly, a spokeswoman for Total Transportation, MAT's corporate parent in New York City, said the driver said he had confused Maniyah with a child with a very similar name and dropped her off at the other child's stop.

Daly said the driver disputed Maniyah's account that she told him that 13th and Courtland was not her stop.

"He would not have left her there if she had said, 'This is not my stop,' " Daly said. "He would not have done that."

If there's a question about a stop, she said, drivers are instructed to call headquarters.

Daly described the driver as a 17-year veteran with an unblemished record who has been honored for his service.

"He is being disciplined without pay until this gets resolved," she said.

The School District looked into the incident and on Friday a transportation official assured Jones the driver would never drive for the district again.

H. Lee Whack Jr., a district spokesman, said in a statement Monday that student safety is the district's first priority.

He said, "The driver involved will no longer provide service to School District of Philadelphia students and the private school involved."

Whack said the district has reminded all bus vendors of safety protocols for boarding and dropping off children.

He added: "In this instance, this specific vendor has already been assessed $40,000 in damages by the School District for its mismanagement of bus routes to start the school year."

Some City School parents also have complained that one MAT route - Maniyah's - is so long that children are riding the bus for hours. It snakes through South and Southwest Philadelphia and on to Germantown.

In fact, Hickman said a substitute was behind the wheel last week because the regular driver had refused to drive the route because of its length.

Jones said the regular driver returned Monday, and things went smoothly.

"No problems and no complaints from parents," she said. "Thank God."

martha.woodall@phillynews.com215-854-2789 @marwooda