To this day, there are flowers for the five-year-old at Escher-Wyss-Platz.Image: Keystone
Susan Schmettkamp lost her child in a tragic accident while on her way to school. Now she is speaking about it publicly for the first time.
In December 2022, a terrible accident occurred at Escher-Wyss-Platz in Zurich: a five-year-old boy was hit by a truck on his way to kindergarten. The boy died. Now the mother is speaking publicly about the incident for the first time.
“I remember screaming immediately. “I thought something bad had happened and I ran to the accident site,” says Susanne Schmettkamp, describing the moment she got the call that her son had been in a serious accident SRF. “it was painful.”
There was a psychologist on site who tried to calm her down, “but I couldn’t stand it at all. “Friends, neighbours and my mates were more helpful.”
She often thinks back to that December day and asks herself what would have happened: “I often turn back time in my mind and imagine how I could have avoided it all with just one small move.”
Mainly in the mornings, when Schmettkamp is driving in traffic, she is haunted by images:
“The images haunt me and I find it difficult to get rid of them.”
Even though the incident happened a year and a half ago, her grief is “still very intense.” She’s not so depressed now and can focus her attention on other things, like work.
This is not the first time the mother has had to deal with grief. She has already lost her son once. Eleven years ago, the umbilical cord ruptured during birth – the baby only survived for a day.
This was also completely unexpected, but we were able to accompany him until his death in a safe environment in a children’s hospital – despite all the horrors, we spent magical moments with him filled with love, peace and gratitude. But still, I asked myself for a long time what I had done wrong as a mother.
Even at the time she thought she had already experienced enough, “as if there was such a thing as a proper measure. I was terrified for a long time after that. I often reacted hysterically when no car slowed down in traffic and my children were with me. Then I calmed down: we wouldn’t want another child to die. But that’s exactly what happened – it’s unbelievable for all of us.”
Schmettkamp emphasizes that she and her husband will always remain the parents of their five children – even if two of them have died. But “love is stronger than death” and even if it takes a while, we always have the strength to pick ourselves up.
(CMU)
You may also be interested in: