A 2-year-old boy who was left unattended in a highway median during Friday night's trick-or-treating was struck by a bus and killed, deputies said.
The Polk County Sheriff's Office said Dohntae Vasquez was one of three children being taken around the neighborhoods near their Lake Wales homes by two adults for Halloween.
Around 7:25 p.m., 29-year-old David Heidler of Lake Wales pushed a stroller holding the three children halfway across U.S. 27 at 1st Avenue N. Heidler stopped in the center median when he realized he had dropped his cellphone and told the children to wait there while he retrieved it, deputies said.
“We were letting the kids go to the [houses] that had lights on and then the plan was to cut across 27 and go to the bigger ones,” said David Heidler's wife, Patricia.
But Dohntae got out of the stroller and darted onto the roadway to run back to the east shoulder, where Heidler and Dohntae's grandmother, 45-year-old Angela Hoerl of Lake Wales, were standing.
“My husband had a break in the cars so he crossed first and in the process he did drop his phone,” Patricia said.
The 2-year-old was struck by a northbound 1990 International bus transporting grove workers from Lake Placid after a day of work, deputies said.
"It happened so very fast," Patricia said. "It was an atrocity and the fact that a young child lost his life makes it 100 times worse."
The bus driver, 33-year-old Albertina Ramirez of Lake Wales, immediately pulled over, and the adults attempted to render aid to Dohntae while also calling 911. But the child died at the scene.
Neither speed nor impairment on the part of the driver were suspected, investigators said. No charges are pending from what the sheriff's office called an apparent "terrible tragedy."
U.S. 27 was shut down in the area for about four hours.