Hun Joon Lee, South Korean Teenage Student Dies in School Bus After Being Aboard Alone for Hours in Whittier, California: Body Found By Police After Being Reported Missing by Mother

Hun Joon Lee, a 19-year-old South Korean student died aboard a yellow school bus owned by Pupil Transportation Cooperative, a private bus company in Whittier, California on Friday, Sept. 11, 2015. A bus driver found his life-less body slumped in the aisle of school bus #243.

Lee’s mother contacted Sierra Vista Adult School, when he never made it back home from school that same day. The school then contacted Pupil Transportation Cooperative. The bus company alerted a bus driver to check bus #243, where the teenager was found. Lee was a special-needs student.

The Los Angeles County Fire Department received an emergency dispatch call about a non-breathing male at 4:15 p.m. Whittier Police arrived on site at 4:23 p.m. Bus drivers and police officers made several attempts to revive Lee through CPR, with no success. Lee was pronounced dead in a Whittier School District parking lot at 9402 Greenleaf Avenue at 4:33 p.m.

“Our hearts are with our student's parents and family -- we're all grieving,” said Whittier School Superintendent Sandy Thorstenson. “We're making ourselves, our counseling services and our staff available to his family and to our students and staff who were close to him.”

Sierra Vista Adult School opens at 8:30 a.m. and ends at 2:30 p.m. Lee’s mother was worried when he did not arrive at home, as he usually does by 4 p.m. Officials found out that Lee had been aboard the school bus alone for several hours. The police did not find weapons on the bus, and did not see signs of trauma on Lee’s body.

The Los Angeles City Coroner is currently running an autopsy for more clues on the cause of Lee’s death. The Los Angeles Times reported that the police regard the death as “suspicious” because Lee did not have serious medical conditions. The police questioned the bus driver who found Lee’s body aboard the bus, before releasing him.

“Nothing that we’ve learned so far would lead us to believe he had any medical conditions,” said Whittier policeman Brad White to NBC LA.

White said that the police are continuing to investigate the death by interviewing people who may have made contact with Lee on Friday. KTLA reported that “it’s possible that Lee had gotten on the bus in the morning but never got off, meaning he was there all day as temperatures sweltered in the 90s.”

Valerie Martinez, a spokeswoman for the Whittier Union High School District said that Lee was a part of the school’s transitional program, which helps adult students with special needs.