Tot dies in Surrey driveway tragedy
Tot dies in Surrey driveway tragedy
Little girl wanders behind mom's SUV
By Andy Ivens, The ProvinceApril 27, 2009
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A quiet suburban Surrey street was gripped with grief Sunday after a mother accidentally killed her three-year-old daughter while backing out of her driveway.
“She said, ‘My baby! My baby! Oh my god, I killed my baby!’” said Teja Thind, who was in his backyard next door when the accident occurred at 11 a.m.
“She said, ‘I just ran over my daughter!’” Thind told
The Province.
As the distraught woman started to take her lifeless child to hospital in her SUV, Thind stopped her and told her son to call an ambulance. Richard Mitchell, who also lives next door, heard the mother scream and ran to see what had happened.
“I looked down to give the girl [cardiopulmonary resuscitation]. I felt so helpless,” he said.
"The mother was totally distraught, she was frantic. She was yelling and screaming in her language.”
He said the mother, from Vietnam, was heading out on a few errands and had left the girl in the care of her older brothers, aged about 10 and 16.
“The mom was going out. She didn’t realize the front door was open,” said Mitchell.
“She got in her vehicle to pull out and I guess didn’t realize the little girl was behind the vehicle.
She drove right over her.”
Mitchell estimates he arrived at the scene about 10 seconds after the accident.
“The girl was limp in her arms. She was holding her, rocking her and crying. It was tragic.”
“Everybody is feeling sad,” Mitchell said of the neighbourhood in the 7100-block of 141A Street in Newton.
A Surrey police officer confirmed the little girl had run into the path of her mother’s SUV.
The mother is not facing charges.
The girl’s name was not released at press time.
