‘A tragedy beyond belief’: Boy killed after being hit, pinned under truck in Montreal

Montreal’s Hasidic Jewish community is mourning the tragic death of an 11-year-old boy who was struck by a truck and pinned under it in the Plateau-Mont-Royal borough.

Mayer Feig, a community leader, attended the boy's funeral service on Tuesday morning. He explained that the child was on his way to Dollarama to buy a lunchbox for school when the fatal accident occurred.

“It’s a tragedy beyond belief,” Feig said.

Montreal police responded to the collision around 7:30 p.m. on Monday at the intersection of Parc and Bernard avenues in the Mile End neighborhood. The driver, traveling southbound on Parc Avenue, turned right onto Bernard, and the child became trapped underneath the truck, according to police.

“He was trapped underneath the truck, so then the child was transported to hospital while in critical condition and unfortunately the child died of his injuries,” police reported.

Paramedics were tending to the boy when police officers arrived at the scene, which was drenched by rain. Feig, a volunteer paramedic in the area, was tasked with informing the boy's parents of the devastating news.

“I know the family. Unfortunately, I was the one who had to go notify them,” Feig shared. “It was very, very, very tough for me to do.”

Although Feig did not personally know the victim, he noted that the family is well-known in the community, and the boy’s parents and at least eight siblings are “all grief stricken beyond belief.”

Police confirmed the truck driver, a 28-year-old man, was not injured in the incident. No arrests have been made as of Tuesday, and the investigation remains ongoing. Investigators have spoken with witnesses and are seeking footage from nearby surveillance cameras. The safety perimeter around the scene has since been lifted.

Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante expressed her condolences to the family, acknowledging their “terrible ordeal.”

“Please drive carefully. Protecting the most vulnerable on the road is everyone’s business,” Plante wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

Calls for a Safer Intersection

The boy’s death has shaken Mile End residents like Ainsley Daumler, who witnessed a near-accident at the same intersection just days earlier.

"Last week a kid was almost hit at the same intersection because a car ran a red light,” Daumler said.

Since the incident, there has been growing demand to make the busy intersection safer. Feig pointed out that the area’s visibility is “very bad,” a result of streetlight replacements in recent years.

Marie-Soleil Cloutier, director of the Pedestrian and Urban Space Laboratory, told Global News that pedestrians often face increased risks in the fall.

“I feel that we have to improve a whole bunch of road environments, crossings, and even maybe the lighting of our streets and intersections,” she said. “But I feel we also have to be aware of the fact that we share streets.”

While additional traffic-calming measures would help, Cloutier emphasized the need for drivers to be vigilant, particularly in areas with heavy pedestrian and cyclist traffic.

“I would urge all drivers and those in the city to be extra careful,” she said. “You know, you have a responsibility when you’re behind a wheel.”

Marianne Giguère, a city councillor in the Plateau-Mont-Royal borough and executive committee member for active mobility, said “a lot can be done” to improve the safety of Parc Avenue.

“We’ve been working on projects to improve the safety,” she explained.

Giguère also noted that if the investigation reveals that lighting was a factor in the collision, improvements could be made. She added that accidents tend to increase after Daylight Saving Time ends, and pointed out that it was raining heavily when the boy was struck.

“But we need to work on every intersection because it has to be more systematic,” she said, referring to both Parc and Mont-Royal avenues.

Giguère stressed that while significant work is needed to improve road safety throughout Montreal, it is a “long process” due to the city's design, which has been built around car traffic flow.