What Scott Cowell experienced in front of his home is still difficult to talk about.
He was in his garage on Lisgar Avenue when tragedy struck.
“I heard it, then I kept hearing music and walked out here,” Cowell tells CTV News.
According to Ontario Provincial Police, 26-year old Wyatt Chambers of Tillsonburg was thrown from a pickup truck, then run over by the vehicle while rounding a bend in the road just before 8 pm on Tuesday.
A 24-year old Langton man driving the pick-up has been charged with dangerous operation causing death and impaired operation causing death.
“I saw him standing over top of the other guy saying his name, then rolled him over and ran to his truck and left,” Cowell recalls.
Cowell wants friends and family to know that he and his next-door neighbor called 9-1-1 and did everything they could after the driver left the scene.
“Once we realized what had happened, we took his pulse, and did chest compressions and stuff,” he recalls.
Memorial for 26-year old Wyatt Chambers in Tillsonburg, Ont. on Thursday, March 10, 2022. (Daryl Newcombe/CTV London)
OPP say Chambers died at the scene.
Several neighbors who declined to be interviewed said when the driver returned to the scene, a woman who was related to the victim also arrived and had to be consoled by police.
The homeowner whose front lawn is the site of a memorial of flowers says after witnessing the tragedy, and the steady outpouring of grief, he is willing to host a permanent memorial to the young man.
Cowell says the cluster of homes around the memorial are grieving for a young man most of them didn’t know.
“It’s a shame what happened,” he says. “It’s tragic.”
The accused is scheduled to make his next court appearance in April.