Accident at Escher-Wyss-Platz in Zurich Boy killed by truck - now the mother speaks out

In December 2022, a boy was fatally injured by a truck on Escher-Wyss-Platz. Now the mother speaks out for the first time.

Susanne Schmetkamp will never forget the moment she received the news of her little son Tony's death. "I just screamed. I screamed for a very, very, very long time," she says in the SRF program"Sternstunde der Nacht". Tony, not even six years old, was hit by a truck and fatally injured on his way to kindergarten shortly before Christmas 2022.

The accident caused great consternation far and wide and changed the woman's life forever. Schmetkamp, a philosopher and ethicist, was suddenly trapped in the reality of a mother whose loved one had been taken from her.

"It felt like having part of your heart ripped out of your body," says Schmetkamp, describing the agony she experienced when she arrived at the scene of the accident. In the days and weeks that followed, her life was divided into two different realities. On the one hand, everyday life continued in a seemingly orderly fashion; on the other, there was a paralyzing standstill. "You live in different times and realities," she explains in an interview with philosopher Barbara Bleisch.

Grief is omnipresent

Tony is not the first child Schmetkamp has lost. Eleven years ago, she experienced the loss of a newborn baby who died just one day after birth. The death of her father, when she was only 13 years old, also left a deep mark on her life.

But the loss of a child that you love unconditionally and are responsible for protecting is an unbearable burden that shakes your own identity. "It's as if the child you were physically connected to was taken from your body again. But not to live, but to die," she says, describing the pain.

Today, a year and a half after Tony's death, the grief is still omnipresent. "Actually, I don't even like to say 'still', because it may always stay that way," says Schmetkamp quietly. She has learned to work again and look after her family, but the despair remains. Getting over the loss is impossible. "You can't get over this kind of blow from fate. You can only come to terms with them, if at all."