CHARLOTTE — A family filled with grief days before Christmas after a driver hit and killed 11-year-old Hendrix Truesdale Friday morning while he was walking to Coulwood STEM Academy in northwest Charlotte.
Laura Truesdale will always remember her oldest son as her baby.
She said Hendrix loved school and the holidays.
“He just made the A-B honor roll, and I know he was looking forward to Christmas this year,” the mother said.
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A driver of a pickup truck hit and killed Hendrix as he was walking on Gum Branch Road near Summerlea Drive, police said.
“It seems like he missed the bus, and I think he was trying to walk,” Truesdale said. “And me and his dad drove in that direction to see the walk that he had to take, and it’s just no sidewalks.”
Hendrix’s grandmother, Leeora Anderson, said she is making T-shirts for a candlelight vigil.
“He got up that morning and didn’t even know that that was going to be his last journey,” she said.
His parents are trying to figure out how to pay for his funeral, she said.
A GoFundMe campaign has been set up to help pay for it.
“He did the GoFundMe because we did not have prepared ourselves for this day,” Anderson said. “So we asked the community to help us as far as raising money to give him a proper burial so we can lay him to rest.”
Hendrix’s mother said she wants crews to add sidewalks or lower the speed limit on Gum Branch Road.
The family is asking for prayers.
“He was going to have a big Christmas,” his mother said. “I know he was looking forward to it, so it’s going to be really difficult to get through the rest of the season.”
One neighbor told Channel 9 that they woke up to sirens.
“I heard the sirens go off because I was home and I said, ‘Man, that’s really close, I wonder what’s happening,’” said resident Tyeasha Vanburen.
Vanburen said she became concerned when she saw the area blocked off, and was shocked when she learned what happened.
“I can’t imagine. My heart dropped because I have a young daughter, and I can’t imagine her doing something as innocent as walking to school and getting injured. It wasn’t until I was on my way back that I saw the child didn’t make it,” Vanburen said.
Investigators said Hendrix was crossing the road “outside of a marked crosswalk” when he was struck by a Nissan Frontier.
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department has not released the identity of the driver involved in this incident. No charges have been announced.
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