National Road Safety Week next week 22nd-28th November 2010
My wonderful son (Tyrese Hannah, South West region)
My name is Caroline, and I’m a very proud mum. My beautiful Tyrese filled my time with love, laughter and life. He had a fearless energy and a spirit which glowed kindness.
My wonderful son was killed on 14 March 2008 by a speeding driver. Tyrese was just seven years old.
It was a Friday. Tyrese and I were walking his dog Odi after school. Tyrese loved Odi deeply, and they went everywhere they could together. We walked Odi together most evenings and I enjoyed the walks spent chatting to my son. I will always treasure every memory of Tyrese, but now those walks will be forever tainted by the memory of this last walk we had together.
As we walked back up Drove Road, two cars speeded past us and I remember thinking that they were idiots to drive that fast. We were only 100 yards further up the road when, in an instant, the whole world turned upside down. Another speeding driver lost control, mounted the curb, crashed into the wall and into Tyrese and Odi. It all happened so quickly, yet I can recall each split second. The car hit the wall three times in total. It stopped inches from my toes.
In the seconds after the crash I tried to find Tyrese to see if he was ok. I looked up, but I couldn’t see him. I looked down, and there he was, on the floor between the car and the far edge of the path. His mouth was blue. He wasn’t moving.
I ran to him and tried desperately to give him CPR and check his pulse. My whole body was shaking as I shouted frantically for someone to phone an ambulance. There were quite a few people who had stopped and I think four or more people phoned 999, including myself once I’d fumbled in my pocket for my phone. I was in another world.
The ambulance took us to hospital. He was kept alive by a machine that breathed for him. My poor boy had so many injuries; two broken bones in his neck, his spine was broken, his ribs and shin too. He had head injuries. He died after five and a half hours in hospital from a cardiac arrest. All my time there by his side I’d been telling myself that everything was going to be OK.
I felt numb. I still feel numb. I don’t want to accept that this has happened. For the first couple of nights I didn’t sleep, I just lay in my bed upstairs. I could hear someone walking around downstairs and I kept thinking it was him and Odi playing. Then I’d catch myself and feel the pain and shock all over again.
I went to visit Tyrese’s school to speak to his friends. The kids were so sweet. Some of them were crying when they spoke to me. They asked if I was sad and said they missed him. One of his classmates told me that Tyrese always put up the chairs at the end of the day for the other children. He was so very kind like that. The school had a ‘Tyrese day’ to raise funds for a play area in his memory.
I’ve been campaigning to make Drove Road safer since Tyrese died. The residents of a home for the elderly across the road from where it happened had been campaigning for six years to get safety improvements and speed cameras. It was only two weeks after the crash that I first went to them to find out what I could do to help. Two years later and the council are finalising plans. I’ve been to meetings with countless other local agencies too. It seems like there are so many barriers to making our roads safer, but it’s worth the fight if it will save anyone else going through what I have.
Sean Austin, the man who killed my son, changed his plea to guilty on the day of his trial. His conviction was for death by dangerous driving; he got three years in jail and was disqualified from driving for two years. He had been travelling at 15mph over the limit in a 30mph zone. I feel let down. Speeding is a choice and it has very real consequences. My young son won’t live another day of his life and his killer will be freed to enjoy the rest of his life.
What I really want is for everyone to think about how they drive much more carefully. The children you read about in the papers being killed by speeders are real children, yet so many drivers just don’t make the connection and continue to speed. A car is a loaded weapon. It’s the driver’s responsibility to keep the safety catch on at all times – I don’t care if you think you’re a good driver and can handle it, I don’t want to hear it. If you speed you are toying with the life of children like my Tyrese. If you speed you are aiming your gun and pressing the trigger.
Please remember Tyrese and support Road Safety Week’s campaign: ‘Kids Say Slow Down’.
Advice for drivers on slowing down
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