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Delay in calling 911 ends with parents, cousin charged after toddler was hit by car

Three adults face criminal charges connected to the death last weekend of a toddler in Henderson, a death the child's parents describe as a tragic accident that has left them devastated.

Posted Updated

By
Keenan Willard
, WRAL eastern North Carolina reporter
HENDERSON, N.C. — Three adults face criminal charges connected to the death last weekend of a toddler in Henderson, a death the child's parents describe as a tragic accident that has left them devastated.

The Vance County Sheriff's Office says the 18-month-old child was hit by a moving vehicle on Saturday evening in the 1300 block of Railroad Road and was taken to Maria Parham Medical Center where he died.

The child's parents, Santos Benito Mendez Ramirez, 32, and Ingrid Rosario Chevez-Ramos, 23, are Guatemalan immigrants who have been in the United States and speak limited English. They told WRAL News that they simply did not know what to do when they found their son, Isaac Santos, injured.

"I couldn’t do anything. It scared me because I had lost control of the situation and didn’t know what to do," Ramirez told WRAL News, speaking in Spanish.

"Now they’re telling us it was our fault, that we’re responsible for what happened to the baby."

Ramirez said the child got outside by himself and was in the driveway.

Adan Leandro Escobar Mendez, 26, who was driving the vehicle that hit the Isaac said he never saw the child. Mendez is charged with failure to report that accident.

The parents both face charges of child neglect/child abuse and failure to report the death of a child because they delayed in calling 911. They responded by carrying the child into the house to try and care for him.

When that failed, they took him to a neighbor, who did call for help.

"We finally went to a neighbor and asked for help, to see if she could call 911. That was the only word we knew," Ramirez said.

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