“IT ALL happened so fast! One minute he was playing in the house, the next he was dead.”
These were the anguished words of Esterlita Bartlett, the aunt of 18-month-old Toby Jordan Jobs, who died after he was hit by a bread delivery bakkie on Monday morning.
“He would have been exactly 18 months old today (Tuesday). How did the driver not see him?” Bartlett said, struggling to hold back her tears.
Bartlett said that Toby was playing in his home in Floors on Monday morning and nobody noticed that he had wandered outside. “We just heard people shouting outside and we ran to see what had happened and that is when we realised that he must have slipped out of the house.”
Bartlett said they were still vague on the details about what exactly transpired after that.
“All we know is Toby was inside the house and he must have slipped out and gone to play at the back of an abandoned car that is less than five metres from the tuck shop attached to the house. What we were told was that the driver had stopped at the tuck shop. The jump boy then got out to ask how much bread the tuck shop owner wanted. The driver then sped off and when residents in the road shouted for him to stop, as he had hit Job, he just carried on driving,” Bartlett said.
She added that residents had chased after him but he just kept on driving. “They gave up the chase in Karee Road.”
Bartlett said that everybody in the street would miss Toby. “Everybody loved him, especially the older boys. He was such a joy and had such a pleasant nature - you just had to love him.”
She went on to say that he loved posing for photos. “Whenever somebody brought out a phone, he would already go into pose mode.”
Bartlett said she would especially miss Toby in the mornings. “He used to wake up with his mom and dad and, after they had dressed him, he could hardly contain his excitement at walking with to take his older brother Cody to school.
“When they got back his mom would say, ‘Say good morning’. He would then look at me and blow me a kiss. That was his good morning to me.”
According to Bartlett, Toby’s mother, Randalline, was extremely traumatised by the child’s death. “She is not well. She is at the doctor at the moment.”
The tuck shop owner, who did not want to be identified, said he would also miss Toby. “I saw him every single day. I will never forget the screams and the images of the small child lying there. His death has touched me a lot. I couldn’t carry on working on Monday after it happened. I will miss the little boy.”
Police yesterday confirmed the incident and said they were investigating a case of culpable homicide.
“The accident happened in Beech Road, Floors, on Monday at approximately 9.35 am,” police spokesperson Captain Tessa Jansen said.
Jansen added that according to the driver of the bakkie, he was with a passenger and none of them were aware that there was a child nearby and he only drove off because he was being pelted with stones.
“The driver and employer came to the police station to report the incident and a statement was taken. The docket was sent to the public prosecutor for a decision whether the driver was negligent and should thus be charged with culpable homicide,” Jansen said.