A tragic accident transpired earlier this week in the state of Oklahoma when a father accidentally ran over his 2-year-old son at their home in Tulsa, according to authorities.
Tulsa Police Department officers said they received calls about an accident around 10 p.m. on Tuesday, April 12. Upon their arrival at the house, the police officers learned that a man accidentally ran over his young child with his Dodge pickup truck while trying to park the vehicle in their driveway.
The family told the police that they had just arrived home from the grocery store and parked the truck out front. People magazine reported that the father opened the house's front door while the mother got out of the truck with their toddler.
Young boy ran back toward the truck without dad's knowledge
Tulsa Police added that the family had no plans to leave the house again that night and that after they got out of the vehicle, the mother started walking toward the house with her son. Unfortunately for the family, the 2-year-old boy ran back toward the truck unbeknownst to his father.
Police wrote that the dad went to pull his truck into the driveway and then felt a bump. When he got out of the vehicle, the father learned that his young son had run back toward the truck and had just run over him with the right rear wheel of the truck.
Police said that the 2-year-old boy was immediately taken to the hospital afterward with the child in critical condition. He eventually died after succumbing to his injuries overnight.
Tulsa Police has not publicly identified the family, saying, "This is a tragic situation for everyone involved." Police also said in their statement that no charges are being filed against the family at this time.
Lt. Steven Florea spoke about the accident in an interview with CBS affiliate KOTV-DT, saying, "This isn't the first one like this, unfortunately. This is something that happens, and it's just very important that anytime you have children, that you're aware of where they are at all time, especially when you're around a moving vehicle or anything like that."
Thousands of kids killed or seriously injured in backover incidents
According to KidsAndCars.org, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to saving kids from accidents in and around motor vehicles, thousands of children are seriously injured or killed in backover incidents every year. A backover incident typically happens when a vehicle is backing into or out of a driveway or parking space, and the driver does not see the child on the car's way.
Newsweek reported that according to the nonprofit, at least 50 kids are backed over by cars or trucks every week in the United States. One-year-old kids are most at risk of backover incidents. A parent or close relative is behind the car's wheel in over 70 percent of these tragic accidents.
