The parents and siblings of four children killed when they were hit by an alleged drunk and drug driver recalled the traumatic moments immediately after the crash – as never-before-seen footage emerged showing the kids happily chatting seconds before tragedy struck

The parents and siblings of four children killed when they were hit by an alleged drunk and drug driver recalled the traumatic moments immediately after the crash – as never-before-seen footage emerged showing the kids happily chatting seconds before tragedy struck.

Siblings Antony, Angelina and Sienna Abdallah, aged 13, 12 and eight, and their 11-year-old cousin Veronique Sakr, died on February 1 while walking to their local supermarket in Oatlands, in Sydney’s north-west, to buy ice cream.

The children were celebrating their cousin’s birthday on the day of their deaths – and it was the first time they had been given permission to walk to the store without parental supervision.

Seven children were struck just before 8pm on Bettington Road, one of the main thoroughfares through Oatlands, allegedly by the drunk son of a former NSW detective, Samuel William Davidson, who is accused of having drugs in his system at the time. 

Charbel Kassas was trailing behind his cousins on a push bike when they were swiped from behind.

He was thrown from the bike, which was crushed in the crash, and was so badly injured his heart stopped at the scene. 

But paramedics performed CPR and the 11-year-old was whisked away to hospital in a critical condition.

Charbel spent two-and-a-half months in a coma following the crash, and his family were told to expect the worst.

Now, he is known among family and friends as their ‘miracle’.

‘My cousins that passed away prayed for me to get better,’ Charbel told <a style="font-weight: bold;" class="class" rel="nofollow noreferrer noopener" target="_blank" website 'This is how I survived.'

He explained how he and his cousins never saw the car coming as they made their way to buy the ice cream to celebrate his older sister’s birthday. 

‘The car came out of nowhere and just hit us from the back and made me in a coma for two months,’ he said.

‘It made four of my best friends die.’  

Antony Abdallah was more than just Charbel’s cousin. The pair were also the best hill station in world of friends.

When he woke up, Charbel said he wished Antony had survived instead of him.   

‘Best, best mates. I just love him. Like, I wish what happened to him happened to me and what happened to me happened to him,’ he said.

Mabelle, whose 13th birthday sparked the festivities which brought the children together on February 1, wasn’t seriously injured in the crash but witnessed to horrendous scene. 

She said she immediately went to check on Charbel and begged God to keep him alive before going to see if her cousins were OK. 

She watched the bike her younger brother had been on moments earlier crushed under the weight of the car. 

‘The passenger came up to me and kept saying sorry,’ she said of the aftermath.

‘He kept hitting himself in the face. I went to all the bodies to see if they were breathing. They weren’t breathing. [But] Veronique was the hardest one to go to because she was over the fence.’

In the weeks to follow the crash, Veronique’s father, Bob, obtained CCTV footage taken outside the home where the crash took place.

The never-before-seen vision showed the children stopped in a circle and chatting on the sidewalk.

After a few moments, the group stopped talking and once again began moving off camera, which was when the car, allegedly driven by Davidson, ploughed into them from behind. 

‘Knowing they were unaware, they didn’t suffer, the car came from behind them, is the only comfort I get,’ Bob told the program.

‘She was called back home to God.

I know she’s up there with her grandparents that she never got to meet on Earth. And knowing her sense of humour… the same as my mother… I feel sorry for everyone else up there.’ 

The parents of all the children who were hit were on the scene within minutes, but it was too late.

Danny Abdallah, the father-of-three of the children who died, recalled the exact moment he realised something had gone terribly wrong.

‘It was like a warzone,’ he said.

‘Some guy ran up to me and he kept saying ”we’ve got to tell their parents”…

and I said, ”mate, these are my kids”.’

‘I saw them. I went up to each one and I knew they were gone.’  

Mr Abdallah tried in vain to resuscitate Antony, his eldest son, with mouth-to-mouth.

He found Angelina, who he realised was already gone.

Then he saw Sienna, his baby girl. 

‘Sienna wasn’t good at all,’ he said. ‘Veronique wasn’t good.’ 

As more police and emergency services poured in, Mr Abdallah was pushed to the side. He watched as each of his children, and finally his niece, were covered with a cloth. 

<div class="art-ins mol-factbox floatRHS news" data-version="2" id="mol-d2c010a0-cb31-11ea-bad1-f94ad25f510b" website shows moments before tragic Oatlands death of four children