After viral ‘nodding mom’ video, SEPTA urges passengers to report what they see

The young daughter (right) of a heavily inebriated woman on a Philadelphia bus was removed from her mother’s custody. SEPTA officials urge the public to alert SEPTA operators when they see such incidents. Credit: Youtube

After a SEPTA bus passenger filmed an extremely intoxicated woman swaying in her seat while her young daughter looks on, SEPTA officials are urging members of the public to report such incidents to SEPTA drivers or to call 911.

SEPTA public information manager Andrew Busch said the video was a “clear-cut” situation where an operator would have notified the SEPTA Control Center, who could have contacted police or other law enforcement personnel. Any SEPTA employee on any mode of transport would do the same, he said.

“If someone were to come up and notify a bus operator about a situation like this, the operator is trained to notify the control center,” Busch said. “They would send the appropriate personnel to handle whatever is going on.”

Busch added that passengers can call 911 to alert authorities in such an instance.

In this instance, no one called 911 or alerted the SEPTA operator.

The woman’s young daughter repeatedly says “Mom” in the five-minute video, holds her semiconscious mother’s head up with her hand, and pulls her mother’s bags out of the aisle so that other passengers can get by.

The operator of the Route 66 bus heading down Frankford Avenue on which this video was filmed came forward to SEPTA supervisors and informed them that he was unaware that the incident even happened until the video went viral.

“The operator is going to want to make sure the situation gets addressed by the people who are best trained to handle it,” Busch said. “We would encourage the riders to let them know.”

The video, which was uploaded to the Facebook group “People of SEPTA,” can be seen below.