“This one is really hard for me to look at, just knowing what comes next breaks my heart.”
Samantha Jensen, a mother, reflected on these words as she looked back at a photograph of her three-year-old daughter Scarlett, who tragically passed away only five minutes after the image was taken.
On October 7, 2022, at 4:52 pm, Jensen’s world was forever altered. A picture captured on her mother’s phone preserved the haunting final moments of her daughter on the private driveway where Scarlett and her brother were playing.
The children were under the supervision of their grandmother while Jensen, a mother of four, was away attending a friend’s wedding.
Scarlett and her two-year-old brother were out collecting wildflowers with their grandma when the unthinkable occurred.
Jensen, hailing from Oldtown, Idaho, shared her harrowing experience with People. She recounted: “That afternoon they went to get ice cream and enjoy a walk together.”
“When they arrived home to our back driveway, Scarlett wanted to get out of the stroller to pick flowers. That’s when my mom took the last picture I have of her alive.”
@samjensen44 Grief doesn’t have to be lonely. I’m here with you.♥️ #healingjourney #griefandloss #grief #fypage #childloss #childlossawareness
At 4:47 pm, the toddler’s grandmother captured a sweet moment of the children enjoying their surroundings on a dirt road. Suddenly, a Chevy Tahoe sped down their private driveway, hitting all three of them.
Describing the tragic final moments of Scarlett, her mother explained to the publication: “My mother was waving her hands, screaming for him to stop and she tried to grab my children to move them out of the way but he was going too fast.”
“Scarlett was killed almost instantly and my mom and Henry were critically injured.”
The mother recounted: “Henry was life-flighted to the children’s hospital where they found a fractured spine, six broken ribs, a broken jaw, a broken collarbone, a liver laceration and several other injuries.”
“My mom had several broken bones but was able to be released from the hospital.”
She added: “Henry spent a week in the PICU before he was stable enough to come home, and he had a full body brace on for 10 weeks.”
The driver was identified as 25-year-old Dakota LaFountain. According to reports, he fled the scene on foot before being apprehended a few miles from where the incident occurred.
More than a year after the incident, the man from Newport was sentenced to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to vehicular manslaughter.