TRAGEDY IN QUEENS
Boy, 7, killed by van after he steps off school bus
A 7-year-old boy who had just stepped off his school bus was struck by a church van sent to pick him up and killed in Queens Wednesday.
Cameron Brown was on Gipson St. near Mott Ave. in Far Rockaway about 3:15 p.m. when he was hit by the van.
Keith Williams, 72, saw Cameron exit and walk behind the school bus when the van crushed him.
“He didn’t see the child,” Williams said of the driver. “Cops were pressing his chest trying to bring him back alive. It was terrible to see.”
Williams thought the second-grader was a baby before he had to walk away from the gruesome scene.
“Blood was gushing from his mouth. He was still wearing his backpack,” Williams said. Cameron’s 9-year-old sister rides the same bus to Public School 43 in Far Rockaway with her brother. She was put back on the bus while she helplessly waited for her family to arrive.
“All I saw was his feet,” said Paris Brown of her younger brother.
Medics rushed the boy to St. John’s Hospital but he could not be saved. The van driver remained at the scene.
Cameron’s family sobbed outside the Far Rockaway hospital Wednesday afternoon.
“He was a good boy who died early. The good always die young,” said his father Joseph Brown, 66.
Brown blamed his son’s death on “carelessness” of the staff on board the school bus, who should have made sure Cameron got on the van safely once he got off the bus.
“They were supposed to protect him,” he said. “There should have been someone to transfer him from the bus to the van.”
The family said they repeatedly tried to get in touch with the bus and van company, but their calls have not been returned.
Education Department officials said the bus involved was not contracted by the city, but would not specify if it was a private bus hired by Far Rockaway families. Parents of some PS 43 students pool money to pick up their kids from the bus stop.
Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza visited the child’s family at St. John’s Hospital and said crisis counselors will be provided for students and staff at PS 43.
“I’m heartbroken by this tragic loss of one of our children, and share my condolences with the family and school community,” Carranza said.