A 2-year-old south Georgia boy was killed Monday when his mother accidentally ran over him outside the family’s home, according to the Long County sheriff.
“It was just a very tragic accident,” Sheriff Craig Nobles told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Oliver Sebastian Bell ran behind his mother’s vehicle as she was moving to a different parking spot in the small town of Ludowici, about 236 miles southeast of downtown Atlanta. The toddler died at the scene. No charges will be filed, Nobles said Wednesday.
The boy’s death came just one day before a new federal regulation went into effect requiring back-up cameras on all new vehicles.
At least 50 children in the U.S. are backed over every week because a driver could not see them, according to the nonprofit group KidsAndCars. From 1994 through 2017, at least 70 children died after being backed over, according to the organization. Georgia ranks fourth in the nation for the most fatalities involving children being run over.
“Backovers are not only predictable,” KidsAndCars said in an emailed statement, “they are also 100 percent preventable.”
The funeral service for Oliver will be held Saturday at Compass Worship Center in Ludowici. In addition to his parents, he is survived by two brother and his grandparents, great-grandparents, and a great-great-grandmother, according to his online obituary.
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