Off The Record

5 Minutes Before She Is Declared Dead, A Woman Takes Her Granddaughter’s Last Picture

Published on October 23, 2024

Shortly before her untimely death, a grandma in Idaho took a picture of her three-year-old granddaughter.

When the tragic incident occurred in 2022, Samantha Jensen’s mother Jamie was keeping an eye on her two-year-old brother Henry and little Scarlett.

Two years later, Samantha had the courage to post the final picture of her kids playing together before Scarlett’s untimely death.

In a TikTok post, Samantha wrote: “My mom took this picture at 4:47PM and my daughter’s time of death was 4:52. My mom didn’t know she was capturing the last moments of her life.”

She added, “I looked at the timestamp and realized it was only five minutes before her declared time of death, so it must have been taken seconds before the person hit them. This one is really hard for me to look at; just knowing what comes next breaks my heart.”

Scarlett begged to get out of her stroller so she could pick flowers, and Jamie had just returned after taking the kids out for ice cream.

“That’s when my mom took the last picture I have of her alive.”

While they were gathering yellow and purple flowers in their private driveway, a Chevy Tahoe that was traveling down the gravel road struck Scarlett, her brother, and their grandmother.

Jamie attempted to shove her grandchildren out of the way and yelled at the vehicle to halt before the collision.

But the driver was moving “too fast.” “Scarlett was killed almost instantly and my mom and Henry were critically injured,” Samantha told People.

The distraught mother didn’t realize her mother had snapped a picture of Scarlett’s last moments until weeks later.

“My mom lost her phone when they were hit, and it took us a while to find it, so when we finally did, I was going through the pictures and found that one,” Samantha said.

At first, Samantha found it “excruciating” to gaze at the photo.

“It was extremely painful for me to look at in the beginning. How do you come to terms with the existence of a ‘last picture’ of your child?”

However, after two years, she has learned to take solace in the serene setting the picture depicts, posting it on TikTok and receiving touching comments from complete strangers.

Samantha expressed: “I am so incredibly thankful to have that photo. It captures the peaceful feeling of her last moments, the beauty she was surrounded by when she took her last breaths.”

“I will forever picture her happy and carefree, picking flowers with her best friend and Meemaw.”

When Henry was taken to a children’s hospital following the accident, medical professionals discovered “a fractured spine, six broken ribs, a broken jaw, a broken collarbone, a liver laceration and several other injuries.”

The two-year-old “spent a week in the PICU before he was stable enough to come home, and he had a full body brace on for 10 weeks,” Samantha recounted.

Henry and his grandmother eventually healed from their physical wounds.

But the emotional wounds remain deep for the grieving family. Scarlett, born on New Year’s Day 2019, was “the long-awaited first child” of Samantha and her husband. Her grandfather, Jim Patton, shared with KHQ that she was “so full of life, so full of love… such a smart little girl.”

He went on to say, “A piece of my soul is gone.”

The daughter Samantha recalled was “the silliest, sweetest little girl.”

“She loved horses, unicorns, being a big sister, and the movies Frozen and Spirit.”

“The absolute joy of her life were her siblings. She loved helping take care of baby Molly and playing with her best friend Henry.”

Scarlett’s happy presence is sorely missed; “the house feels so quiet and empty without her.”

The driver’s actions continue to cause the family to struggle. The driver was caught a few kilometers away after escaping the area on foot.

“How do you do that? How do you walk away from suffering?” Patton asked. Samantha pointed out that the driver currently has a ten-year prison term, of which two years are credited for time spent in court.

Sometimes Samantha’s anguish is too much to handle. “Some days, it feels like I am drowning, and some days I am able to tread water.”

Her decision to post about her experience on social media was motivated by her desire to demonstrate to others “that it is okay to grieve loudly.”

“You don’t have to do it in silence. Talk about your people, scream their names loud and proud, and never stop sharing their stories.”