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Two Year Old Tragedy: Run Over By Aunt In Mishap
posted (January 29, 2018)
And in another kind of fatal vehicular accident.

A Teakettle family is still in shock tonight after their 2 year old baby girl was crushed under her aunt's vehicle. It happened on Saturday evening after 4:00. Little Sofi Reyes just wanted to be with her dad but it ended in tragedy when her aunt, Elvita Cruz drove over the baby. Courtney Weatherburne has more on this devastating mishap.

Courtney Weatherburne reporting
2 year old Sofi Reyes was a ray of sunshine. She was cheerful and loving. But now her family will only be able to see her gleaming smile in photos she has left behind.

Little Sofi was run over and killed on Saturday evening in front of her Teakettle family home.

Shamika Smith, Aunt
"The 3 babies were playing under the house. And we usually come here every weekend. And the bus was parked right there in the drive way. And my other sister in law was coming and she stopped here to give my brother in law a bottle of oil because he was changing the oil from his truck. And when she stopped she just hand him the oil through the passenger side and when he get it he walked in front of the vehicle and crossed the street to his truck."

That's when baby Sofi followed behind her dad. Her mother who was under the house didn't see when Sofi had walked off, neither did her father nor her aunt, Elvita Cruz. And as Cruz drove off, she hit Sofi.

Clifford Reyes, Father
"Two bikes are blowing behind me and I spin around and when I spin around, I understand Spanish, the Spanish man on the bicycle said (They knocked down a girl). When I looked on the road I say that is my daughter clothes, my daughter already lay down like this on the road."

"So I ran there grab my daughter, pick up her and I am hailing her, and I am kissing her and crying "Sofi, Sofi, it's daddy baby and I do her so and I am kissing her only blood is coming out of her nose, her ears and mouth."

They rushed Sofi to the Western Regional Hospital but there was nothing they could do to save her.

Shamika Smith, Aunt
"It just happened so fast, in the split of a second because 3 of them were playing together."

Reyes says if his father's bus wasn't parked in the yard, Sofi would be with them right now.

Clifford Reyes, Father
"He normally move that big bus and from there put it at his other lot. But because of the weather he didn't move it because the bus is going there to bog so he left the bus. And that bus, it's long, it take up a lot of space and that block a lot of view if that bus wasn't there this wouldn't have happened."

But now little Sofi is gone forever and Cruz and the family have to find a way to move on, no matter how hard it will be.

Shamika Smith, Aunt
"She feels it, she has been crying since the day, from the day she has been crying. She can't hold up, she have to live with it for the rest of her life."

"Everybody forgive her because it was an accident, we can't do anything about it, it done happen."

As you heard, the baby's mother and other kids were under the house but no one saw when baby Sofi ran out. The bus was also blocking their view. Police didn't have anything to share on this case - and could not say what, if any, charges will be brought.

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