DALLAS – The parents of a Dallas ISD preschooler are outraged that their four-year-old was left alone on a hot school bus for hours.

“I depended on them. I trusted them with my child and they messed it up. I’m just grateful to still have them,” said Robert Pruitt.

Pruitt’s four-year-old daughter, Araiya, is a preschooler at Clinton P. Russell Elementary School in Dallas ISD.

The bus picked them up shortly before 8 a.m. on Tuesday morning, but it wasn’t until the end of the school day that his wife received a dreaded call, according to Pruit.

“After this hysterical statement that our daughter never made it to school, I was on the other end of the line saying that our daughter had been left on the school bus for seven hours,” Pruitt recalled.

The girl was left in the bus depot in Lancaster in temperatures of around 30 degrees.

“She’s autistic, she can’t speak, she couldn’t say anything and still get attention. That’s probably one of the reasons she was left behind,” Pruitt said.

Pruitt says he was traveling on a work route hours away in Commerce.

The child was taken to the hospital for examination and fluid administration.

When Pruitt arrived, he said he was being fired.

Dallas ISD sent an updated statement to FOX 4 on Wednesday afternoon.

“Student safety is our highest priority. We are appalled by the incident involving a preschool student who remained seated on a bus yesterday. We are grateful that the student is OK and are conducting a thorough investigation. Dallas ISD is committed to the safety and well-being of all of our students,” the statement said.

Pruitt told us investigators informed him the driver had been fired.

“People lose their jobs for much less and go to prison for much less. To simply say he got fired and my daughter is traumatized and suffering is no consolation to me,” he said.

Pruitt said district officials told him there was a handoff process when students arrived at school.

He was also told that bus drivers are required by regulations to clean buses at the end of their shift.

Pruitt wants this incident to be a lesson for others.

“We hear too many stories like this of children being left unattended on buses,” he said. “God saved my daughter, not you. God is the reason my daughter is here, but you should have saved her. I left her in your care.”

Pruitt said DISD police called him before the interview and told him they were taking video from the bus. He said he wanted to see the video.