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Triplets’ wagon hit by car in parking lot

Mother appeals for information about incident.
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A shot of Mahalia Meeuwsen and her idential triplets, Hannah, Rileigh and Isabelle in the red wagon, which was recently destroyed in a hit-and-run incident. -Observer file photo

The triplets are safe, but you can’t say the same about their red wagon.

Mahalia Meeuwsen was taking her identical triplets, Hannah, Rileigh and Isabelle, who are nearing their second birthday, for a walk downtown in their specialized red Radio Flyer wagon at approximately 10 a.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 27.

Almost ready to go home, Meeuwsen and her helper were loading the triplets into their van in the Ross Street Parking Lot with the wagon waiting to be loaded into the van’s trunk. Suddenly a small, white car parked beside them pulled out of its stall and ran over the wagon.

“We were buckling the girls in and suddenly I heard this crunch from behind and turned to see a woman, who had hit the wagon, and she kept backing up over it,” says Meeuwsen. “I yelled and she stopped and rolled down her window, so I yanked the wagon out from underneath and then she just looked at me and drove away.”

Meeuwsen said she was so shocked, she didn’t have time to get the licence plate number, but notes there was red paint on the bumper of the car, which she thinks was a small Japanese car, possibly a Honda Civic or a Toyota Corolla. She says the woman was Asian, in her 30s, with long, black hair.

“I am so grateful the girls were not in the wagon,” she says. “But this was crazy. For her not to stop like that, I still can’t believe it.”

With three active toddlers, Meeuwsen says she used the wagon nearly every day. She had spent a few months finding it online, because it is large enough for the three girls and had seatbelts for all three — a must with three nearly two-year-olds who sometimes want to escape. To buy new would be nearly $800.

Now it is damaged beyond repair.

The City of Salmon Arm told Meeuwsen they do not have surveillance video of the parking lot and the RCMP said without a licence plate, there’s not much to go on.

“I’m just hoping someone else may have seen something, or if they see a white car with damage and red paint, maybe they will report it,” says Meeuwsen. “I’m just so upset.”


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