In a sad twist of fate, nine-year-old Victorian boy Kaleb Smith was killed in car accident just months after being cleared of cancer.
Kaleb died after the car he was travelling in, which was being driven by his mother, rolled just 200 meters from the family’s farm at Lindenow South, Victoria on Sunday afternoon.
His 12-year-old sister Karmen, who was also in the Holden Commodore that crashed, was flown to the Royal Children’s Hospital with life threatening injuries and a 12-year-old boy was helivaced in a serious condition.
Kaleb’s seven-year-old brother, Kodyn suffered minor injuries and was taken to nearby Bairnsdale Hospital.
Victoria Police said Kaleb was thrown from the car and died at the scene.
According to the Herald Sun the children’s aunt, Bec White said Kaleb’s mother, Evie Smith, and the children had finished putting some away cattle that were grazing on the roadside.
“He was too good for this world, obviously,” Ms White said.
Kaleb had been given the all-clear earlier this year following a harrowing battle with Burkitt’s leukaemia after he was diagnosed in November 2012.
“They tried to take him with cancer and now they took him with this.”
Kaleb, who was in grade four at Lindenow South Primary School, was remembered as a spirited youngster whose adoration for his farm animals endured despite sometimes being one very sick little boy.
“He loved his animals. He would be the first up in the morning to go and check on the sheep and feed the chooks,’’ Ms White told the Herald Sun.
“Even when he had his leukaemia treatment he would still get up and feed all the animals.
“It didn’t stop him. He just kept fighting. He would just go and get all the cattle, and that is what he did on Sunday.
“He was just a farm kid.”
Another aunt, Maree Day, said Kaleb’s “fighting spirit will never be forgotten.”
“Kaleb is now with the farm spirits, teaching them a thing or two. He is the wind we feel, the sun that shines and the snow that falls.
“Kaleb is now a part of our land that will never be gone.”
Kaleb’s father Robbie was reportedly working in Bairnsdale when the crash, on Cowells Lane, occurred and the couple’s fourth child, Kelisha, 10, wasn’t in the car.
The children’s 32-year-old mother was reportedly uninjured and is assisting police with their enquiries.
