Hendrix Camden, 5, is a special needs student in the Amador County Unified School District who just started kindergarten this year.

On Thursday, he boarded a school bus after class was over, just like every other day.

"His normal bus driver showed up and we made eye contact, and he goes, 'Hendrix isn't on my bus today,' " Hendrix's mother, Twilight Camden, said.

That's when she began to panic.

"A little kid on the bus goes, 'He got on the other bus,' " Camden explained. "I said, 'Hold on. What do you mean he got on the other bus?"

Camden found out that her five-year-old was boarded onto the wrong bus. She finally connected with her son's driver, but once she arrived at the bus stop, he was nowhere to be found.

"I get back to my car and I'm getting a phone call from a random number, and they're saying, 'Hey, we have Hendrix,' " Camden said. "I assumed it was a van driver or he was just put on a different route or something."

That call was actually from a worker with Kamps Tree Service who happened to find Hendrix wandering down the winding, mountain road.

"The kid, he came walking from around the corner over there and came up to this first house here, and since there was nobody there, he came around this way," Kamps Tree Service worker Luis Ramirez explained. "He just wasn't sure where he was at. I tried to make him comfortable by getting a water bottle and a cookie, and we told him to sit outside. His mom came, and, yeah, I was blown by it too."

Twilight Camden said Hendrix had walked a quarter of a mile down the two-lane road before finding the workers.

"There's nowhere for him to be that could have been safe," his mom said. "I was hoping, praying, that he didn't get hit by a car or get kidnapped."

Now, Camden is asking for answers and accountability.

"Protocol is for a kindergartner to be released to an adult or a parent, and if there's not anybody there and you don't have signal, you keep driving to the next stop and you call once you have signal. It just wasn't handled correctly," Camden continued. "All I want is for the school to know what's going on, transportation to know what's going on, and something to get figured out."

CBS Sacramento reached out to the Amador County Unified School District multiple times on Friday and was finally able to reach the superintendent in person, who said that while he is aware of the situation, he could not comment on the incident.

Camden reached out after our interview and said the district called her to say they are investigating.