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Abdul Razack Tarawaley, a nine-year-old Sierra Leonean boy died in Australia on the night of Saturday 12 November 2022, after being trapped in a garage door.
Abdul Razack Tarawaley’s father, who goes by the same name, said his son was with two other boys at their Altona North apartment complex after dinner on Saturday when tragedy struck, The Age, a Australian publication reported.
The man recounted telling his son – known to friends as Razack – he could not go out to play, as the family had just returned from a long day in the city.
“He said, ‘No, Dad, you know I go to school from Monday to Friday, and I have to play on weekends. Can you please give me a chance to play with my friends?’,” Tarawaley said.
“I said, ‘OK, just for 30 minutes.’ But now 30 minutes is forever.”
Emergency services were called to the Mason Street property at 7.30pm after reports two boys were trapped in the garage door for the building’s car park.
Family members told Nine News the boy was treated by paramedics but died at the scene.
It is understood the children were climbing on the outside of the door at the time of the incident.
When Tarawaley went downstairs to check on his son, he found Razack and one of his friends trapped above the garage door.
“I tried to pull down the gate, but I couldn’t because it was too big and too heavy,” Tarawaley said.
“The other boy was shouting, ‘Help me God, help me God!’ I checked my son’s head and I checked his fingers – it was all cold.”
Tarawaley described his son as “a lovely (young) man” who wanted to be a doctor and was academically gifted, constantly coming home with certificates from school.
The grade four student loved soccer and was popular at his apartment complex where “everyone knew him”, his father told Nine News.
“He was so cute and so sweet … I miss him so much,” Tarawaley said. “He was very eloquent and talked to anyone he met at any given time.”
According to the Royal Children’s Hospital, the 12-year-old boy from Keilor Downs who was also injured remains in a serious but stable condition with upper body injuries.
The nine-year-old was just two weeks away from his 10th birthday and was an only child.
“God gives and God takes away. So we just have to accept how it is for now, because God knows best and we can’t question him,” the grieving father said.
Police said it was not clear how the children became trapped in the door, but the incident is not being treated as suspicious.
While initial emergency dispatch reports described the Mason Street property as being in Altona North, police said on Saturday night the incident had occurred in Newport.
Credit: The Age
