Residents of an Overbrook neighbourhood say they’re still in shock after a young boy was struck and killed by a dump truck on Wednesday.
The fatal collision occurred
on the 300 block of Presland Road at around 3:40 p.m. Police said life-saving measures were performed at the scene, but the child was pronounced dead at hospital.
Kathleen Sauder said she was sitting in her living room in her home on Presland when she heard a noise unlike any she had heard before.
When she opened the door and went outside, she saw a young boy — identified as five-year-old Jaxson Mansfield-O’Brey — face-down on the pavement underneath a large dump truck, his bike still pinned beneath one wheel.
Sauder promptly called 911 and stayed with the boy as she talked to dispatchers.
“As I’m trying to talk to the (dispatchers), they’re asking me to check his pulse. There was no pulse on his wrist. I checked his neck. There was no pulse on his neck. I said, ‘His eyes are open and glazed. He’s not moving. He’s not breathing,’” Sauder recalled on Thursday.
First responders arrived and started CPR before transporting the boy to hospital, Sauder said.
Sauder said she also started knocking on doors to determine if any of her neighbours recognized the young boy while police tried to find his parents.
After hearing a knock on the door and being urged to come outside, Victoria Leblanc identified him as young Jaxson, who often played outside with other kids at a nearby park. Leblanc said she ran down the street to find the boy’s mother.
“He was five years old and the sweetest boy ever,” Leblanc said. “It could have been anyone’s kid. It could have been my kid. It takes two seconds for something like that to happen.”
The residential street is usually quiet, she said, but recent construction work has brought more traffic and large construction vehicles to it.
Leblanc said she hoped to see speed bumps or other speed-reduction measures installed on Presland Road to prevent incidents like this from happening again.
On Thursday, a small memorial was forming beside the road where the collision happened. Leblanc said she took down a swing that used to hang from a tree in her front yard, and other people started placing candles, flowers, candy and stuffed animals at the base of the tree.
A vigil to honour the boy will be held on the 300 block of Presland Road on Friday starting at 6:30 p.m.
