Shortly after 3 o'clock Saturday afternoon we were on our way home from a drive to a couple of the beaches south of town and stopped at a corner grocery to pick up some 649 tickets and a newspaper. Helen was just coming out of the store when she heard a woman screaming from a across the street. She looked up to see a car come to a stop and a small child falling to the pavement. Helen hollered at me and I ran across the street to find a little girl lying unconscious in front of the car and a quick assessment of the situation suggested she'd been struck by the car as she crossed the street in or near a marked Crosswalk. Her little shoes were in the middle of the street a few feet away from the Crosswalk. It was as if she had simply stepped out of them and left them there.
A couple of guys got to her about the same time as I did and we tried to do what we could for her. I was able to feel a weak pulse on the radial of her left wrist and one of the other guys confirmed he had one at the carotid artery and that she was taking some very sporadic and weak breaths. After what seemed to be a very, very long time but in reality just a few minutes, we could hear the sirens of the approaching emergency vehicles. At about the same time, I lost the feeling of the little girl's pulse! At almost the same time my cohort said he had lost the pulse at the carotid! Once the EMT's arrived they readied her for transport and took her to the ER. We later learned she had died.
SHE WAS JUST 5 YEARS OLD!
While we were attending to the child, a woman who appeared to be a little more than "middle aged" had collapsed screaming and apparently convulsing onto the pavement in front of the car. I presumed her to have been the driver. She was being attended to by other passersby and was also taken to hospital by ambulance.
As I was comforting the little girl as best I could, Helen was busy in and around the store with some of the other people affected by this tragedy. There was the woman Helen had first saw and heard screaming who had a younger child with her. It was determined she was the victim's babysitter and had been waiting at the Crosswalk with both children so they could cross to the Bus Stop located across the street. And, there was a man who had been driving a lawn care truck westbound. He told us he saw the trio waiting at the Crosswalk across the street so stopped to allow them to cross. He said he saw the little girl look directly into his eyes and start to run across the street without looking to her left. If she had she would have seen the eastbound car bearing down on her. The car did not seem to take any braking or other evasive action and hit the child full-on. The lives of many, including ours, have been touched!
This afternoon we visited the scene and found a pole near the spot the wee girl fell was being covered in flowers. Helen added a single red rose. It was at this time we learned the child's name is "Emma"!
Click on the pictures to enlarge.
