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Aug 02, 2022 • 7 hours ago • 2 minutes read • 12 comments Mitchell Chukwudumebi Nwabuoku Photo from provided photo /Toronto Sun
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Her name was Mitchell Chukudumebi Nwabuoku but her loving family also called her Mimi.
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Instead of enjoying a beautiful summer day with the 4-year-old girl, her mother, father and siblings were burying her after the July 26 tragedy that shook the entire region.
The baby girl, who was born in Dallas in 2017 and moved to Milton in 2018, died last week when she was struck by a GO train on the Cawthra Rd tracks. and Dundas St. W.
“It’s devastating,” said her uncle, David Kiwang Bebiem, who added that Mitchell lit up every room she entered. “She was such a special child.”
He and his wife were due to take part in a church service this week which was to see them officially become Mitchell’s godparents.
Before the tragedy, the intention was to go to the park and eat ice cream. But somehow the 4-year-old and other children made it through a porous section of fenced-in area — designed to keep people away from trains — and ended up on the tracks.
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“It’s a direct route from the course to those tracks,” said Bebiem, who thinks it would be worthwhile for authorities to look into the potential hazard there.
Nothing can be done to bring Mitchell back, but maybe another child can be prevented from going off the rails.
There was no doubt that there were many holes in this fence and neighbors said that people were illegally crossing the tracks as a shortcut was common. Crews were on site the very next day repairing the cut or downed fence.
It was a day too late to help in this case.
An investigation is underway to determine what happened, but her father said she was not trying to cross.
She was chasing “butterflies,” her grieving father Emmanuel Nwabuoku told CP24 on Tuesday. “Mitchell is an angel, she talks like an angel. Mitchell is acting like an angel.
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The family had been staying at his brother’s apartment while he was in Toronto on business so the family could collectively mourn the recent death of Emmanuel’s mother, Felicia Nkem Nwabuoku.
Now Mimi’s family – including her mother Esther Ifunaya Nwabuoku and her siblings Olivia, 9, and Price, 8 – must grieve again.
Perhaps this would be a good case for a coroner’s inquest to determine what can be done in the future to prevent other tragedies. How long had it been since the fence was last repaired?
But this was a day to remember for Mitchell.
“Mitchell (was) daddy’s princess,” Emmanuel told CP24. “Mitchell (was) everything to us.”
jwarmington@postmedia.com
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