This is the final heartbreaking picture of a three-year-old girl picking flowers before she was killed in a hit-and-run just minutes later.
Scarlett was playing with her little brother Henry with their grandmother Jamie watching when an out-of-control Chevy Tahoe crashed into them in Idaho in 2022.
Scarlett’s mother Samantha shared the photo on social media, writing: ‘My mom took this picture at 4:47 pm and my daughter’s time of death was 4:52. My mom didn’t know she was capturing the last moments of her life.
‘I looked at the timestamp and realized it was only five minutes before her declared time of death, so it must have been taken seconds before the person hit them.
‘This one is really hard for me to look at, just knowing what comes next breaks my heart.’
Jamie had taken her grandchildren out for ice cream when Scarlett wanted to get out of her buggy.
But a car ploughed into the three, with Jamie screaming at the driver to stop and trying to push the children out of the way.
Samantha told People: ‘Scarlett was killed almost instantly and my mom and Henry were critically injured.
‘That’s when my mom took the last picture I have of her alive.’
Henry suffered a fractured spin, six broken ribs, a broken jaw and collarbone, and a liver laceration.
He and grandma eventually recovered, but the family are still coming to terms with the loss.
Jim Patton, Scarlett’s grandfather, told KHQ: ‘A piece of my soul is gone. She was ‘so full of life, so full of love…such a smart little girl.’
Samantha said: ‘Without Scarlett running around, the house feels so quiet and empty.
‘Some days, it feels like I am drowning, and some days I can tread water.’
The mum said she decided to share her agony so that people feel ‘okay to grieve loudly’.
‘You don’t have to do it in silence,’ she added.
‘Talk about your people, scream their names loud and proud and never stop sharing their stories.’
She also revealed how she felt the moment she saw the final picture.
‘My mom lost her phone when they were hit and it took us a while to find it, so when we finally did I was going through the pictures and found that one,’ Samantha said.
‘It was extremely painful for me to look at in the beginning. How do you come to terms with the existence of a “last picture” of your child?’
The driver fled the scene after the accident, but is now reportedly serving a 10-year sentence.
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