RICHLAND COUNTY, S.C. — A former cancer patient needs the bus to get to his doctor appointments, but it's become a struggle because the light is out at his bus stop.
"All I want is the light to work," Marvin Goodson said.
Since November, Comet bus rider Marvin Goodson said he has been making that simple request.
"I keep begging and pleading with them, and they haven't done nothing. They keep telling me they're going to get a bulb and it's not working out here as we speak today," Goodson said.
In the dark, it is almost impossible to tell there is a bus stop at the intersection of Adams Scott and Bluff Roads- the exact stop Goodson catches the bus.
"I live about a quarter of a mile down the street on the dirt road and I have to walk up here to the bus stop, there's a two lane highway, it's real busy in the morning, all these trucks and they haven't done no justice here," Goodson said. "All I was asking them, would you please change the light."
59-year-old Goodson said he had his voice box removed after having cancer and has to use his trach to speak. Now, he though he is cancer free, he still depends on the bus to get to his follow up appointments.
"It's dark out there. I already ran out two flash lights going back and forth to work trying to go to the doctor," Goodson said. "It's very hard on me because I have to ride the bus and I have to go to the doctor at least twice a week sometimes."
The light is operated by the Comet. A Comet spokesperson, Pamela Bynoe-Reed, said the light was purchased in the fall of last year. Problems with a fuse continue to cause it to go out.
"We've replaced it a several times, but it keeps going out, so what we had to do was order a whole new system and of course as, you know, that takes time for it to come in," Bynoe-Reed said.
Bynoe-Reed also said the light will be fixed in the next couple of days.
"Things like this, we take very seriously because it's part of our mission to not only transport people from one place to the next, but make sure they are safe in doing so," Bynoe-Reed said.
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