NJ bus driver's body unaccounted for after five hours

Officials are reviewing communication procedures after the unsettling death of a New Jersey Transit bus driver whose body went undisturbed for five hours while his engine idled at the Port Authority.

Thomas Truex, a 26-year veteran from Edison, N.J., dropped off his last passengers at 10:30 a.m. Thursday at the bus terminal, and was supposed to return to the Meadowlands garage, officials said. He was discovered slumped in a passenger seat at 3 p.m.

Port Authority spokesman Steve Coleman told The Record of New Jersey that the agencies will need to look at how bus operations are coordinated and if a driver doesn’t show up that “there are employees who can notify us ASAP so we can check it out.”

Truex’s cause of death was not immediately available Monday, but authorities do not believe it to be suspicious.