Cousin pays tribute to 9-year-old Zamuel Rennett after Laidley road death

A nine-year-old boy has been remembered as a “loving, caring” child after he was tragically hit by an oncoming van while walking with his brothers west of Brisbane.

THE family of “happy nine-year-old” Zamuel Rennett have been left shattered after he was hit and killed by a van in Laidley.

Zamuel’s cousin, Kat Burnett, told The Courier-Mail Zamuel was “a loving caring boy who loved playing on the computer and colouring and playing out side with his brothers”.

“He will be truly missed by his brothers, mother father and all his grandparents, aunties and uncles,” Ms Burnett said.

It’s understood Zamuel was walking on the side of the road with his two brothers Tuesday morning, before running out on to the road where he was hit by an oncoming van.

Nine-year-old Zamuel Bennett was hit and killed by a van at Laidley. Picture: Supplied

Paramedics rushed the young boy to Laidley Hospital where he died a short time later.

Ms Burnett yesterday launched a GoFundMe account “with permission from his mother to try and help in any way possible to just lay this beautiful boy to rest”.

Ms Burnett, who has set a fundraising target of $10,000 to cover the cost of Zamuel’s funeral, said he was “at the beginning of his life doing all the stuff that any other regular nine-year-old boy would be doing when his life was cut short”.

“Now as you can imagine given this time of year and having this tragedy hit this small family with grief of not having their son with them is devastating and the cost of his funeral is even a bigger task,” she wrote on the GoFundMe page.

Officer-in-charge Senior Sergeant Regan Draheim said the incident had rocked the community.

“It’s tragic that this has occurred and obviously so close to Christmas, a huge tragedy for the family and the community and for the police involved as well,” he said.

“The emergency workers attending it would feel it as hard as anyone.”

Police said the driver of the van was co-operating with police and investigations would continue.

The scene of a fatal crash in Laidley on Tuesday. The van involved in the accident was taken away by police.

It is the second pedestrian fatality in a matter of days for the region after a 36-year-old woman was killed in a hit and run incident at Gatton on Saturday night.

Mum of seven, Julie Thomsen, was with a friend walking back to her broken-down car along the Warrego Highway at Hatton Vale, west of Brisbane, when she was struck and killed between 10.30pm and 11pm.

The accident happened about 200m east of the Shell service station.

“Any fatality is too many,” Sen-Sgt Draheim said.

“They’re really concerning … and I seek the assistance of the public to try and give information on either of these matters, whether there’s footage or just help us out to see if we can actually better understand what’s actually occurred on both instances.

“We constantly talk about driver attention.

“Driver inattention is a big killer and a big danger on our roads and obviously these incidents have involved the inattention of the pedestrians as well as the inattention of the drivers.”

The Forensic Crash Unit is investigating and anyone with information on either incident is urged to contact Policelink on 131 444.