A five-year-old girl was runover and killed just a day shy of her one-year anniversary of finishing chemotherapy.
Camila Torcato, from Toronto, Canada, was just two years old when she was diagnosed with cancer.
Since then, the brave youngster had undergone multiple surgeries on her kids and lungs and completed her final course of chemotherapy in January last year and was able to start kindergarten in September at St. Raphael Catholic School.
Camila Torcato (pictured), from Toronto, Canada, was just two years old when she was diagnosed with cancer
But tragedy struck her family twice.
Camila’s father, Amilcar Torcato, told The Star he was picking up his daughter from school on Monday, when a runaway SUV rolled towards them and pinned both of them against their vehicle.
The five-year-old was rushed to the hospital with organ failure and internal bleeding. She died a few hours later.
‘She was a fighter,’ her dad Amilcar Torcato, his voice breaking, told the Toronto Star. ‘She was a very special girl… shy, but very sweet; my mind is filled with her memories.’
Camila Torcato had undergone multiple surgeries on her kids and lungs and completed her final course of chemotherapy in January last year
But tragedy struck her family twice. Camila’s father, Amilcar Torcato, told The Star he was picking up his daughter from St. Raphael Catholic School (pictured) when a runaway SUV rolled towards them and pinned both of them against their vehicle
The five-year-old was rushed to the hospital with organ failure and internal bleeding. She died a few hours later. (Ten-year-old Lily Rose (requested no last name) and her mother (requested not to be named) place flowers at her memorial)
At the end of the school day, students look at a memorial of toy bears and flowers, resting on a snow-covered retaining wall outside St. Raphael Catholic School, January 16
A lone stuffed toy bear rest on a snow-covered bench outside St. Raphael Catholic School, January 16
What makes her death even sadder, was that it occurred the day before her anniversary of finishing chemotherapy.
‘It would be a year now after finishing chemotherapy and this just happened yesterday,’ Torcato said Tuesday. ‘There are so many memories of playing with her, and going with her to places she liked to go to like the beach, playing in the snow, outside, she liked being outside all the time.’
Torcato says he doesn’t normally pick his daughter up from school but he had that day as Camila has asked for him especially that afternoon.
Police have not arrested anyone in connection with Camila’s death and Toronto Police wouldn’t say if they are investigating the owner of the SUV.
The vehicle was empty when it hit the youngster and it’s not clear whether the owner left it in park.
Students walks past a sign outside St. Raphael Catholic School, January 16
‘A beautiful 5-year-old girl is dead. We are investigating that to the very best of our ability,’ Toronto Police Superintendent Scott Baptist said.
Flowers and tributes have been left outside St. Raphael Catholic School in Toronto, in honor of Camila and the school is now working on making a memorial table. The school are also making counselors available to students.
Meanwhile her parents are urging others picking up their kids to make sure they are always in park when they leave their vehicles.
Sandra Taglieri, who has two children who attend the Catholic school, told the Star she’d been deeply affected by Camila’s death which was ‘a tragedy.’
A GoFundMe has now been set up to help the Torcato family with the funeral.