TriMet is changing policies that left drivers to find their own way home if they fell sick during a shift.

The agency now says it will send someone to pick up sick drivers and take them to the nearest TriMet facility -- typically the garage where they started the day, but possibly another facility where they can make arrangements to get home.

TriMet spokeswoman Roberta Altstadt acknowledged that hadn't always happened previously.

"At times, operators who feel well enough to drive will take the bus to a transit center or layover point and take transit back to their bus garage," she said in an email. "At times, a TriMet supervisor or other employee has responded and transported an ill operator back to a garage, but that has not always been consistent."

The change came after the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 757 recounted on its website a case of a bus driver and former union officer, Sandy Guengerich, who was left at a Lake Oswego bus stop after falling ill.

She was neither given a ride back nor allowed to drive the bus, which had been taken out of service, back to the garage where she's based. The journey back to TriMet's Merlo Garage in Beaverton took an hour and 45 minutes, the union said.

TriMet said it would change its policy in response to questions from The Oregonian/OregonLive about Guengerich's account, which the agency did not dispute.

"TriMet's leadership wants to assure our operators that going forward, if they become ill while on route, they will not be left in the field to find their own ride," Altstadt said.

Union President Shirley Block raised the issue last week during a meeting of the TriMet board of directors.

She put questions to TriMet Chief Operating Officer Doug Kelsey, who was named this month as the sole finalist to become the agency's next general manager. Kelsey said at the time he would look into the issue.

"At the surface, this doesn't pass the test," he said.

Union spokesman Andrew Riley said in an email that TriMet's promise not to leave drivers stranded was welcome.

"Company management has been very direct with us that their policy was, in fact, to deny road relief to sick operators as a matter of course," he said. "That policy was inhumane and wrong, and we're glad that TriMet's leadership has agreed to change it."

-- Elliot Njus

enjus@oregonian.com

503-294-5034

@enjus