A Tulsa, Oklahoma, family is reeling from a horrific accident this week after a father ran over his 2-year-old son while trying to park his truck.
In a statement released on Facebook, the Tulsa Police Department said that the family had just returned home from the grocery store on Tuesday night and parked their Dodge pickup truck out front. The father opened the front door of the house, while the mother and toddler climbed out of the car.
The mother told her husband that they would not be leaving home again that night. She began walking toward the house with their son, as the father went back to pull the truck into their driveway. It was then that he "felt a bump," police said.
The horrified parents realized that their child had run back toward the truck and that the father ran him over with the right rear wheel. The 2-year-old was rushed to the hospital in critical condition, but died overnight from his injuries.
"This is a tragic situation for everyone involved," said police, who added that no charges were currently being filed.
Thousands of children are killed or seriously injured in backover incidents every year, according to KidsAndCars.org, a national nonprofit dedicated to saving children from accidents in and around motor vehicles. A backover incident typically occurs when a car is backing into or out of a driveway or parking space and the driver does not see the child.
At least 50 children are backed over by trucks or cars every week in the United States, the nonprofit claims. One-year-olds are most at risk. In over 70 percent of these harrowing accidents, a parent or close relative is behind the wheel.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) advises parents to teach children not to play around cars and to supervise them carefully when a car is nearby. The NHTSA also encourages walking around a vehicle to check the area before backing up and having children stand to the side of a driveway or sidewalk, where they are visible. Large vehicles such as trucks, vans and SUVs are likely to have bigger blind spots.
Last month, another father accidentally killed his 2-year-old daughter while reversing into a parking garage in Texas, Newsweek reported. In January, a 7-year-old in Michigan died after he was struck by a bulldozer driven by his father.
Newsweek reached out to the Tulsa Police Department for comment.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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