It's one thing to mock death with elaborate front-yard graveyards for Halloween. Quite another when death mocks us back.
On Saturday night, 9-year-old Tamia Metz of East Orange was struck and killed while trick or treating in Nutley. A 3-year-old Newark child was injured in the same accident and the 44-year-old driver of the SUV who hit the children was taken to the hospital as well.
It got scary on my block too Saturday night, when several ambulances suddenly showed up in the middle of trick or treating. It turned out to be a kid swallowing some lamp fluid. No word on the outcome.
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Comments (5)
Good grief, what a tragedy.
Halloween is a tricky time for drivers. Driving home at 5PM on Saturday was an exercise in extreme caution. I must have been going 5mph from Ridgewood to my house on Cleveland. Kids and parents festooned the streets and sidewalks, many of them disregarding basic common sense, no doubt bathed in the false sense of security that all the other drivers out there were being as careful as I.
What a shame.
Someday a similar tragedy is going to happen at the dentist's house on Grove and then finally someone might wake up and realize it's not a good thing to turn your front lawn into a Disney attraction. Last Friday night was rainy and foggy and there were cars up and down Grove, all the way back over Route 3, and families walking in the street, cars backing up where they shouldn't be backing up, and just a general state of chaos. When I saw small kids in Grove Street in the darkness crossing and trying to get around cars I nearly had a stroke.
"It's one thing to mock death with elaborate front-yard graveyards for Halloween. Quite another when death mocks us back."
I think your need to be clever gets the better of you sometimes.
What a heartbreak. :(
My thoughts are with Tamia's family, and I hope the other child and the driver recover quickly.
This story haunts me. Our neighborhood is intense at Halloween -- our houses are close together, there's a lot of participation, and the neighborhood is safe. We handed out about 225 pieces of candy -- a mega Costco bag and a half. The rain slowed it down. We were having friends to dinner at 8:30 pm after the crush, and I made an emergency trip to Bottle King for a bottle of wine when I realized we had none at about 5:00. It was still light out, but Midland Avenue was terrifying to drive through -- packs of kids darting back and forth between parked cars like racoons at dawn. I was driving about 8 MPH and still not sure I could miss them. When I got back, I bullied a neighbor into taking his car off the street -- I felt that a driver had a much better chance of seeing darting children without parked cars in the way.
Most of our trick-or-treaters are from other places. Almost all of them say "trick or treat" and "thank you." They are usually accompanied by parents, but a sugar-charged kid in costume can be as unpredictable as a maniacal kitten.
My heart goes out to the child, the parents and the driver.