A heartbroken mum has opened up about the devastating moment she realised her ‘sweet’ little boy had died in a car crash.
Klara Donovan had just picked up her son Jackson, 6, and his younger sister Rosie from school in Perth last Friday and they were on their way to pick up another sister, Everley, at pre-kindy when the tragedy unfolded.
The family were caught up in a four-vehicle pile-up at the intersection of Dixon and Mandurah roads.
‘Everything went white. All the airbags had deployed around me,’ she wrote in a post on Facebook.
Moments later she called out to her kids in the backseat, asking if they were okay.
Rosie immediately responded, but Jackson was silent.
Jackson Donovan (pictured) was critically injured in a car crash as his mother drove him and his sister home on Friday
Ms Donovan wrote of her shock in a post on Facebook, sharing that she had been looking forward to the weekend with her three children and their dad, Chris
At first she was confused but when she turned around she realised he had been badly injured.
The family were later told he had died on impact.
Ms Donovan wrote of her shock in a post on Facebook, sharing that she had been looking forward to the weekend with her three children and their dad, Chris.
‘I literally thought “what a great day”. I was thrilled that in less than an hour we’d all be home together for the weekend.
‘And everything went white.’
She was confused at first, then realised ‘we’d just been hit really hard and all the airbags had deployed around me’.
The family’s black Kia people mover was ‘pushed into the traffic and got hit one or two more times which spun the car and then we finally stopped,’ Ms Donovan wrote.
Though her wrist was sore, she otherwise felt OK and thought, maybe it wasn’t that bad.
She called out to see if her children were OK. ‘Rosie started screaming. Jackson was quiet and I was honestly so confused as to why he didn’t answer until I saw him,’ she said.
A heartbroken mum, who was looking forward to the weekend with her husband and three children has written about the devastating moment she realised her ‘sweet’ little boy had died in a car crash
The devastating scene of a four-vehicle crash in Western Australia last Friday in which a six-year-old boy died
Ms Donovan said she and her husband ‘can’t wrap our heads around how everything has just stopped’.
Jackson loved video games and reading Dr Seuss books to his parents and younger sisters, whom he loved.
Ms Donovan wrote that he loved ‘chicken wrap happy meals with frozen Coke’ and had ‘special relationships with each of his grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins’.
She recalled how Jackson would sneak into his parents’ bed at night and how he ‘was always the best in our family at guessing the cakes on Is It Cake’.
Jackson had just won some uno cards at school and was teaching Everley how to play.
Police said a Kia Carnival was stopped behind a Transperth bus at a set of red lights at the intersection of Dixon and Mandurah Roads
He loved Bluey and was very excited that new episodes were about to start.
Ms Donovan writes heartbreakingly that ‘We will never get any of it back and we are gutted.
‘Rosie won’t even remember the brother who knew how to make her laugh long before anyone else could, who carried her into his class in the mornings to cuddle with his friends, who delighted in every little thing she did.’
She wrote that ‘Everley has lost her best friend and wild play mate. We have lost the most awesome, fun, hilarious, smart, sweet kid.
‘We are devastated beyond words. Jackson, we love you so so much.
‘We are so sorry you couldn’t stay longer with us.’
A driver – who reportedly suffered a medical episode – rear-ended the Donovan family’s car and smashed it into the back of a Transperth bus.
Another vehicle then crashed into the wreckage.
A woman in her 80s suffered serious injuries in the crash while a 64-year-old man was taken to Rockingham Hospital but was discharged soon afterwards.
The crash happened just minutes after an emergency alert was issued in WA warning of ambulance delays.
At 2.45pm on Friday an alert pleaded with people not to call 000 if the situation was not a life-threatening emergency.
It was the third time since the beginning of May the service has been forced to send out an emergency alert warning.
Long ambulance wait times have been blamed for several deaths that could have been avoided in the past couple of months.
Grandmother Joan Hope was experiencing shortness of breath when her son called paramedics on April 19.
She died shortly afterwards as the ambulance only arrived 30 minutes later.
Georgina Wild suffered chest pains before calling an ambulance and then died before paramedics arrived two-and-a-half hours later.
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