2-year- old struck by car while playing on driveway
Patty Venuto had just walked out of her mother’s house and onto the porch in time to see her 2-year-old daughter being loaded into an ambulance.
Mya Canfield was playing with stones on the driveway next to the house in the 2300 block of Howey Road in South Linden at about 6:30 p.m. Sunday when a car struck her. She later died at Nationwide Children’s Hospital.
“Everybody kept yelling at him to stop,” Venuto said of the driver, Kentin Marcum, who goes by his middle name, Deon, whose car struck and killed Mya.
“How could he not see her? She was sitting at his eye level ... Everybody knows there’s kids playing in the driveway all the time.”
Marcum, 52, is a close friend of the family. He was bringing another one of Venuto’s children by the house to pick up some money when the child was struck, Venuto said.
Several 911 calls came in immediately after the accident. Hysterical screaming can be heard over the line in two of the calls.
Marcum said he didn’t see the girl and cooperated with police Sunday night, according to Denise Alex-Bouzounis, a Columbus police spokeswoman. It appears from the police report that Mya was hit by the left front of the car, a Pontiac G6.
“Overall, it was an accident,” Venuto said, adding it doesn’t ease the pain of losing her daughter. “I know he didn’t mean to hurt her, or any of the kids.
“She was just learning how to talk more,” Venuto added. “She was smart as a whip, very intelligent.”
The toddler could count a little and was able to sing “Happy Birthday,” her mother said.
On Monday morning, Venuto was at her mother’s house, where the accident occurred. She said she was trying to get money together for services for her daughter.
Marcum declined to comment on the accident when approached at his Woodland Avenue home on Monday. When reached by phone, his mother said “he’s a basket case.”
“Mentally, no, he’s not (OK),” she said.
The accident is still under investigation.