Family of 4-year-old boy who was killed by a bus in Horseshoe Bay still looking for answers

May 28 will be remembered as a life-defining moment for Silvana Schramm, the mother of four-year-old Leonardo who was killed after being hit by a bus near the Horseshoe Bay ferry terminal.

Despite life-saving efforts, Leonardo was pronounced dead at the scene, while Silvana was rushed to hospital in critical condition.

Now, four months of extensive medical care and over 20 surgeries later, Silvana’s survival is nothing short of a miracle.

On her recovery journey, Silvana is slowly becoming whole again physically. But mentally, she says there will always be a missing piece of her heart.

“I still can feel how painful it was, the bus coming over me, and after this I could hear the ambulance coming and I could see… I can’t breathe; I’m going to die,” she said.

While she didn’t learn the truth about Leonardo’s death until two months after the incident, she says she’s felt her little boy’s presence ever since.

“I could feel that he’s helped me heal,” she said.

As Silvana and her family continue to navigate this immeasurable loss, a GoFundMe has raised over $190,000.

Silvana says this community’s generosity has saved her life.

“The money we have right now, are people that helped us,” she said. “If we didn’t have this amount, we couldn’t live here.”

There’s still a long road ahead, but Silvana and her family remain determined to find some sort of closure, whether it comes in the form of answers from the ongoing investigation or proper compensation.

She says the institutions designed to help have failed them.

“Translink didn’t help, ICBC didn’t help,” she said. “You know, this is crazy.”

Meanwhile, Silvana says she will always play the day over and over in her mind.

“I still cry, every day I remember him. Yesterday I cried a lot,” she said.

“If I could go back in time, I would never go outside with him that day. I would have stayed at home.”

Silvana and her family are planning Leonardo’s funeral on Oct. 4 — a day that will celebrate her son’s life, as well as her own.