A four-year-old boy died after being hit by a car while returning from his brother's funeral.
Domantea McDonald, four, was outside his uncle's home in Jamaica, Queen's in New York City, when he broke away from his mum and ran out into the middle of the road.
A Toyota RAV4 was heading down the street and knocked the little one down.
His grief-stricken dad Michael McDonald told the New York Post : "There’s nothing inside me. There’s nothing. I’m empty.
“I just came from burying my [older] son. [Domantea] was only here for a split second to see me. … He wasn’t supposed to leave the world like that."
The family had been at the funeral of Domantea's older brother Tysheem, who was slain in a suspected gang shooting two weeks previous.
In the moments immediately after the accident, the lad was still conscious and screaming for his mum.
His dad launched into action, trying to stop him getting up and keeping him calm while waiting for emergency responders to arrive.
"His eyes were wide open. He was trying to get up. We held him there for however long it took for the Fire Department to get here," Michael added.
When the crew arrived, they turned Domantea on to his side and he caught a glimpse of his mum and tried to crawl to her.
Tragically, he went around five feet, passed out and died on the pavement.
The distraught dad recalled thinking his boy was just asleep and calling for the responders to "wake him up".
He added: “He wasn’t breathing. He died right there. He didn’t die in no hospital. He died right here. I watched him leave his body right here because they let him crawl.”
Domantea's cause of death was listed as "severe head trauma and internal injuries" at the Long Island Jewish Medical Center.
Michael has blasted New York's fire department for allowing the boy to move - insisting that his death was preventable.
The FDNY said they performed "life-saving operations" en route to hospital, but have not responded to Michael's claims.
The dad added: "Domantea had special needs. He was the most wonderful soul in the world, the most wonderful boy anybody could want to meet."
Tysheem, Domantea's older brother who died two weeks prior, "lived in the streets", his dad said, adding that "I couldn't tell him nothing [...] He wanted to be his own man".
“But he loved his little brother. He only met him a handful of times, and Domantea was very autistic, but when he would see Tysheem, he would go to him," he added.
"He wouldn’t go to anybody else, but when he saw his big brother, he went to him.”
