A 3-year-old boy was fatally struck by a car early Thursday after walking away from a Town ‘N Country apartment, deputies said.
Deputies responded to a 911 call shortly before 3 a.m. about a child who had been hit by a car in the northbound lane of Sheldon Road near Brennan Circle, according to the County Sheriff’s Office. Hillsborough. When deputies arrived, they found the 3-year-old boy in the road.
The child was taken to Hospital Sant Josep and was pronounced dead there.
The driver of the car had just left work and was returning home when he realized he had hit something, Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Amanda Granit said during a news conference at the scene. The driver saw nothing on the road, but turned his vehicle around. That’s when he discovered the boy, Granit said.
The man showed no signs of deterioration, Granit said.
“Our deputies immediately began trying to find out why a 3-year-old boy was in the middle of the roadway at this time of night and where the boy’s parents would be,” Granit said.
Within an hour, deputies found an open door at the Valencia Apartments on Westchase, a quarter-mile away from where the boy was hit, and the boy’s parents looking for the boy.
“At that point, you can imagine the heartbreak and the nightmare these parents realized they were living in,” Granit said. “At 3:30 in the morning there’s no place a child should be, and no place parents expect them to be, that isn’t safe and in their bed.”
Granit said deputies were working to determine how the boy got out of the home and that no one is currently facing criminal charges in the incident.
The Sheriff’s Office did not release the names of the boy or the driver.
