Father is helpless as a truck crushes and kills his only son, 5
|||The little boy was meant to start Grade R yesterday.
But instead little Keenan Andrews’ dad will have to identify his son’s smashed up remains at a City morgue.
The bright five-year-old was crushed by a truck on a pedestrian crossing while taking gifts home to his poor family just 12 hours before he was scheduled to start school.
Now cops are investigating a case of culpable homicide after the horror incident on the corner of Range and Stellenbosch Arterial roads at 7pm on Tuesday.
Keenan was with his father Patrick Manuel making their way from Kuils River to his Happy Valley home when tragedy struck.
Keenan was sitting in a metal trolley being pushed by his father when the truck pulled up alongside them.
A witness says the truck hit the boy with the back wheels.
Vanessa Phillips says: “When the father tried to warn the driver, he [the driver] showed him a ‘you’re crazy’ hand signal.
“The child was crushed while on a pedestrian crossing.
“His father was pushing the trolley when the truck reversed on him. The child’s brains were splattered on [the] road.
“He just came from a man who gave him clothes and food for his family. But they never made it home with the new goodies.”
“When the truck drove over the boy all the stuff that was in the trolley was scattered on the road,” she says.
Keenan was Patrick’s only son and the eldest of his three children.
Vanessa says it was good Patrick had decided to leave his two daughters at home, otherwise they too could have ended up under the truck’s wheels.
Cops say a grieving Patrick told them he was pushing a Shoprite trolley with the boy in it on the pavement.
“The truck was too close to them and he tried to signal with his hand to the truck driver when the rear wheels hit the trolley, the boy fell out and the truck drove over his head,” says police spokesman FC van Wyk.
But the truck driver for DJ Bosman Transport say it is Patrick’s fault.
The traumatised driver says he didn’t see the trolley and Keenan falling under the truck and that he only saw Patrick making a hand gesture to him.
l Contact Detective Sergeant Ronald Davies on 021 909 9500/9603. - Daily Voice