The driver who allegedly hit and killed a three-year old boy outside a daycare centre and drove off has handed herself in.
The 73-year Heathcote Junction woman surrendered to police in the northern suburbs of Melbourne just after 9.30am after a desperate appeal by detectives for the mystery driver to come forward.
The child was struck in front of his ‘distraught’ mother and a number of other witnesses on McIntyre Rd in Sunshine North, Melbourne’s west, at about 6:30pm on Thursday.
A witness on Friday told Daily Mail Australia the vehicle that hit the child braked immediately after the accident, but quickly drove off.
Graphic CCTV footage from a nearby shop showed the boy being dragged by a red sedan for a couple of metres as his mother rushed to his aid.
Emergency services rushed to the scene immediately and desperately tried to treat the boy’s life threatening injuries. He was taken to hospital where he later died.
The little boy ran from the home with the red roof (left) directly onto the busy road near the traffic lights
Barber Saad Alyoshik claimed the driver who hit the boy braked after the collision but failed to stop
The child was struck in front of his ‘distraught’ mother and a number of other witnesses on McIntyre Rd in Sunshine North, Melbourne ‘s west, at about 6:30pm on Thursday (scene pictured, with a single shoe left in the middle of the road)
Barber Saad Alyoshik said his colleague desperately tried to stop the boy from running across the busy road.
Positioned directly opposite where the tragedy unfolded, Mr Alyoshik said he watched on in horror as they boy bolted out of a garage and towards the road.
‘He’s coming on the road, he was running and then the car hit, he didn’t see him, he hit him and then he run away. It’s very bad,’ he said.
‘My business owner he say “stop, stop”. We see the boy when he comes there and he’s a little boy, he never heard or doesn’t understand. That’s why.
‘And then I saw the accident … I think someone opened the garage and he was just running.’
Mr Alyoshik claims the car that hit the little boy braked after the collision before driving off.
‘Not stop exactly, just like, not stop, but hit him and after than run away,’ he said.
Mr Alyoshik described the chaos in the moments after the tragedy.
‘After that, just too many people looking for him. His mother was very bad, I can’t talk,’ he said choking back tears.
‘I was shaking. I was scared.’
Mr Alyoshik said it took police up to 15 minutes to arrive at the scene.
‘But too late I think. I don’t know. After 10 minutes (they) come or 15 minutes. Should be come straight away like two, three minutes because little boy,’ he said.
Detectives are now desperately searching for the driver of a red Toyota Camry urging the motorist to ‘hand themselves in’.
A three-year-old boy is dead after being mowed down by a hit-and-run driver in front of a daycare centre as police hunt for the person behind the wheel (scene pictured)
CCTV footage taken from the scene shows the car travelling through the area
Investigators at this stage suspect the the driver failed to stop because they ‘panicked’.
‘These kind of collisions, sometimes they bring out the worst and the best in people,’ Detective Acting Sergeant Leigh Miller told 9News.
‘In this case, you have the driver of a car for unknown reasons, they have failed to stop and help this child.
‘I can just only hope they didn’t know that it was a child, but if they did, what else can we say about them?’
Officers from Victoria’s Major Collision Unit scoured the crime scene overnight, cordoning off the busy road and knocking on the doors of nearby homes and businesses asking for CCTV vision of the incident.
A child’s shoe lay in the middle of the road as police examined the scene.
‘Investigators are appealing for anyone with information and the driver to come forward and contact police,’ police said.
On Friday, locals attending the strip of shops across the road from the tragedy expressed their grief.
‘It’s such a busy road. The poor kid,’ one man told Daily Mail Australia.
Anyone who witnessed the incident, has dashcam footage or any other information that could assist police with their enquiries is urged to contact Crime Stoppers.
A witness claimed the boy dashed out of this garage after someone opened it. He ran directly into the path of a car, which failed to stop after hitting him
Detectives are now desperately searching for the driver of a red Toyota Camry urging the motorist to ‘hand themselves in’ (scene pictured)
***
Read more at DailyMail.co.uk