SOUL-CRUSHING

9-Year-Old Beat Cancer Only to Get Killed by School Bus

Family members of Elyas Amyr Marshall-Rodriguez are still trying to understand how the tragic accident occurred earlier this week.

A 9-year-old Florida boy who survived a cancer battle as a toddler was struck and killed by a school bus earlier this week. Elyas Amyr Marshall-Rodriguez was the last child to get off his school bus in Orlando on Tuesday, according to the Florida Highway Patrol. After he disembarked, he went to the back of the vehicle and, for some unknown reason, climbed underneath it just before the long-time bus driver hit him. Family members have said they can’t confirm reports that the boy was trying to retrieve a ball that had rolled underneath the bus. “He had already been through a lot in his life, so for this to happen is like a spine lodged in our hearts,” his cousin, Trenae Gayle, told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. About 100 people gathered late Wednesday to pay tribute to Marshall-Rodriguez at a makeshift memorial erected outside his home. The third grader, who was diagnosed with leukemia at the age of 2, had just had the port through which he got treatment removed last year after going into remission.