Child struck, killed by mother's car

(The Bronx - WABC, May 3, 2007) (WABC) -- A two-year-old was run over and killed Thursday when his mother backed up her car. And tragedy on top of tragedy, the woman's husband was recently killed in Iraq.

This is a heartbreaking situation here. It happened around 2 p.m. on Miles Avenue in the Throgs Neck section of the Bronx. Investigators were on the scene trying to determine what went wrong.

"I was crying ... I just came out to see if the baby was alive," a neighbor said.

Witnesses describe this happening two hours ago. A gray Jeep Liberty was parked straddling the curb. We're told the mother, Bricy Mercedes, pulled up, was getting out of the car and had taken her two-year-old son, Christopher Mercedes, out of the car when somehow that car started to move backwards.

Nevertheless, the mother jumped back in to stop the vehicle. Witnesses say the child fell out of her arms and under the wheels. The car continued back and hit a van that was parked behind it.

Ambulances responded to the scene. The two-year-old child was taken to Jacobi Hospital where he later died from those injuries.

"She was just screaming, she was just hysterical. It is just tragic ... just hysterically crying out ... 'he's all I have ... I don't have anyone, he's all I have,'" a neighbor said.

The reason for that is because her husband, Army Specialist Sergio Mercedes was killed two months ago fighting in Iraq.

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