A 58-year-old Scarborough woman died in her daughter’s arms yesterday morning, after the woman was run down by a dump truck in North York.
It was just before 7 a.m. when the woman, who works as a building cleaner in the Pine Valley Drive and Steeles Avenue West neighbourhood, was crossing the intersection with her daughter on the east side.
Police said the pair veered off the crosswalk while walking south toward a TTC bus stop.
Then, a roll-off-bin truck with a nearly three-metre-high front end, made a left turn onto Steeles Avenue.
The mother was hit and fell to the ground, suffering “massive head injuries,” Toronto police Sgt. Tim Burrows said. Her 14-year-old daughter was also struck, but she was not badly hurt.
When emergency crews arrived, both the driver and daughter were administering CPR, said Burrows.
“It’s absolutely tragic. For a 14-year-old to lose their parent is enough, but to witness it, to be holding their mother when she passes away…” he added.
A man arrived about an hour-and-a-half after the crash and identified himself as the girl’s biological father. Family friends had already taken the teen away, after she received minor medical treatment at the scene.
Burrows said investigators have decided not to release the victim’s name “out of compassion,” since her daughter is the only next of kin.
