A quick-thinking woman is being credited with saving the life of a 12-week-old boy, scooping him to safety from the carnage of an accident that killed his 28-year-old mom.
The woman came dangerously close to being struck herself over the noon-hour yesterday at Martin Grove Rd. and Eglinton Ave. W. where a car plowed into the mom who was pushing her baby in a stroller.
“That woman is a hero in my eyes,” Const. Hugh Smith said yesterday at the scene.
“In all the confusion, people could easily have left the child lying there in the cold and who knows what might have happened,” he said.
“But she had the presence of mind to pick him up and get him to a warm place.”
The tot was taken to hospital but he is expected to be okay.
Police downplayed earlier reports that the mother had, in a last desperate act, shoved the stroller to safety just as she was run down.
“It may have been a last-ditch effort by the mother to save her child,” Smith said, but added it was unlikely she had enough time.
“It really doesn’t make a difference,” Smith said. “We still have a mother who has perished from this and a young child who is motherless.”
The pedestrian was crossing with the light from the southwest corner to the southeast around 12:40 p.m. when she was killed.
Smith said she passed the centre median and walked by a car that was waiting to turn left, pushing her child in front of her, when a northbound Toyota Camry driven by an 83-year-old woman plowed into her.
“She failed to stop at the light and struck the mother and the child in the stroller,” Smith said.
“The child was knocked out of the stroller onto the ground and the mother was pinned beneath the vehicle and dragged into the middle of the intersection,” he said.
The woman died at the scene about 15 minutes later.
Police were still trying to track down family members late in the day.
The road was dry at the time of the accident. But Smith said the sunshine may have been a factor, especially if the elderly woman’s window’s were dirty.
He said the motorist, who was “in shock,” will face charges.
The intersection was closed all afternoon, as were the ramps from nearby Hwy. 27 to eastbound Eglinton.
Witnesses are asked to call investigators at 416-808-1900, or Crime Stoppers at 416-222-TIPS.
Reposted from the Toronto Sun, Wednesday, January 13, 2010, Original article click here.
chris.doucette@sunmedia.ca
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