Boxing Day ended tragically for an East La Penitence family when a seven-year-old died under the wheels of his father’s canter truck while the vehicle was reversing into their yard.
Dillon Herod of Self Help Square, East La Penitence and Laing Avenue was pronounced dead on arrival at Woodlands Hospital. The child reportedly suffered serious internal injuries in addition to several broken limbs.
According to the police, Troy Herod, the child’s father was reversing the motor lorry from the public road into the yard on December 26 when the vehicle struck down the boy and ran over him. Up to late yesterday the father was in police custody assisting with the investigation.
The incident happened around 9:20 pm. It is not clear what the child was doing in the yard at the time but persons close to the family revealed that he might have been looking for his father.
Stabroek News spoke with a visibly distraught Abiola Harper, the boy’s mother who said she received a telephone call that Dillon had been injured in an accident and immediately rushed down to the hospital. When she got there shortly after, she learnt that the child had died.
Harper explained that Dillon would split his time between his father and her. This Christmas he went to stay with his father and according to her, it has been about two weeks since she last saw him.
“I would visit him from time to time but I have been busy, I did not get a chance to see him before Christmas. I was planning to visit him before the New Year but my son is no more”, Harper lamented.
Since the accident the woman said she has received various accounts of what happened. According to her, it is for the police to determine.
She said Dillon was a bright child who loved to chat people up. He was the second of her three children and was the “little one who acted as though he was the eldest”, the mother recalled.
