GRAYSON COUNTY, Va. -- A Grayson County school bus driver has been suspended with pay after school officials said he left a 3-year-old girl on the bus for nearly seven hours last Wednesday.

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Grayson County Schools' personnel director Chad Newman said that somewhere between a bus switch at Grayson County High School in Independence, Va., and Baywood Elementary, the girl fell asleep and didn't get off when the other students exited the bus.

Officials said that after the driver, Delmar Cornett, finished his route and drove home, the little girl woke up and saw him driving away in a personal vehicle.

The girl's grandparents, Jerry and Gloria Black, told the Galax Gazette that the driver said he checked the bus twice before driving it home.

According to the Blacks, the girl tried to get off the bus, but the door was locked. They also noted that she had not eaten breakfast before leaving for school.

"If it had been real hot or something she could have died on the school bus,” Jerry Black told the newspaper. "I fear that she might have gotten so scared that she may have gone into shock," Gloria added. "A lot of things could have happened that didn't, but we don't want this to happen again to her or any other child."

Newman said the girl was discovered around 2:45 p.m. when Cornett was on his way to run an afternoon bus route.

Newman said the system was conducting an internal investigation into the incident that he hoped to be completed in a couple of days.

Drivers in the Grayson County school system are trained on a yearly basis, and checking the bus at the end of each route is part of that training, Newman said.